


I'm No Good Without You

by di0zapeeRc



Series: Gifted Trilogy [2]
Category: PVRIS (Band), Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Mild Gore, Mild Smut, Multi, The Shining AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 18:23:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6340288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/di0zapeeRc/pseuds/di0zapeeRc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been five years since Tyler Joseph and his family moved into the haunted house that lead him to meet Josh Dun and discover his gift of clairvoyance. To Tyler, they have been the best and worst years of his life. Now, Josh's team are leaving on tour with Alexa San Roman - without Tyler. Their first stop: the Overlook Hotel - notorious for being the most haunted building in the US. Things quickly take a turn for the dire when the team realizes they are in way over their heads and Tyler rushes to their rescue. Can Tyler and Josh save the day - and their relationship - this time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Log 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second fic in a trilogy that I'm working on. It's set in the Shining universe - the novel, not the movie. I'm a huge Stephen King fan and it just made sense that one of my horror-based fics would be set in one of his stories. Anyway, I received a lot of positive feedback on my Poltergeist fic - which you should read first, if this is the first one you found. I had a lot of fun writing this and inventing characters that would simultaneously suit the band members in my fic and the story. In case you were wondering, Meredith and Matilda are based on the ginger twins that haunt the hotel in the movie - the only small bit of the movie I used. 
> 
> I hope you guys love this. Enjoy!

_“Okay, okay. Mr. Joseph, could you maybe just hold up the ca– like that, yeah.”_

_“Tyler, get IN HERE!” Lynn yells, beckoning me into the frame._

_I get shoved from behind by my mom and walk over to where Josh is standing with one arm outstretched. I press myself into his side and wrap my arm snugly around his now ripped torso. He wraps his free arm around my shoulders and pulls me closer to him, kissing the top of my head._

_“We’ll miss you guys!” Maddie says off-camera._

_“We’ll miss you, too, kiddo,” Alexa calls back, smiling tearfully._

_Lynn kisses her cheek._

_“So, what are you guys, the Ghost-busters?” Zack, being home for the week, says amused._

_“We kick more butt than the Ghost-busters,” Alex says. “Well, they do. I just man the camera.”_

_“You are just as important, baby,” Brian says soppily enough to make Jay pull a face._

_I smirk despite myself._

_Alex has managed to tame Brian considerably. Actually, he’s had quite a subversive effect on the older man. Brian now wears all-black like the rest of us in the form of skinny jeans and tight-fitting black t-shirts. He even swopped out his dress shoes for black Converse and his hair is now an artful disarray on his head. You go, Alex._

_“So, into the wide world you go. Any final words?” Mom asks._

_Josh gives me a look._

_“We spit on fear,” he says and gives the camera a brilliant smile._

_I snort and scrunch my eyes shut._

_“Bye, Ohio. You’ve been a bitch, but that doesn’t mean we won’t miss you,” Lynn nails it._

“And you have everyone’s right numbers? I wrote them down on the pad by the phone just in case. Remember, the department opens at 8 AM sharp every day, except on Sundays when we open at 12:00. We are on-call if you have any questions and my library pass is in the top drawer of my desk,” Lynn says in a rush.

“Jeeze, breathe, baby. I’m sure he’ll be great. You _have_ been drilling him all month,” Alexa comes to my rescue. 

“Yes, but…”

“RELAX, Lynn. I will be _fine_. I’ll call you the second I’m unsure of anything. Even if it’s just where the sugar is for coffee – I filled the canister yesterday,” I say as she opens her mouth and she closes it again, her question answered.

“Mind if I cut in?” Josh asks, appearing at Lynn’s side.

Smiling, Lynn says, “Be my guest.”

Then Josh’s arms are around my shoulders and mine are around his waist. We kiss and it STILL makes my heart race and my nerves crackle with electricity.

“I’m gonna miss you, Babyboy,” he says quietly enough for only me to hear.

“What you are going to do is make me cry,” I say, my voice hitching on the last word. “It’s so unfair that I can’t come with you. Stupid scholarship.”

“We’ll Skype every day. I promise. I’ll bring lots of presents from every case we do,” Josh promises, his eyes becoming misty, too.

“Just be careful, okay? You know how out-of-control strong your powers are. Listen to Alexa. If she says you need to get out, you get out. Promise me you’ll come home,” I say, my final request coming out a little more forcefully than I intended.

It seems to strike a nerve with Josh, though, because his gaze gets more intense when he takes my face in his hands and says, “I swear.”

“ _I don’t care what’s in your hair,_

_I just wanna know what’s on your mind._

_I used to say I wanna die before I’m old,_

_but because of you I might think twice.”_

I sing him the little song I hashed out about him in music prac in my freshman year of varsity. My professor says I’m a natural musician. He was shocked to learn I only picked it up when I was seventeen. It was only ever my coping mechanism, but my scholarship overpays for my studies since I don’t need to pay for an apartment or food, nor do I need spending money. So, I decided to double major. I never thought I’d get in for music, but my professor, Dr. Toro, thinks I have a style all my own and we love working together. Mostly, Josh and I jam together. He’s a phenomenal drummer and he even plays the trumpet. Who the hell plays the trumpet?

“You’re such an asshole,” Josh says, his voice wobbly with tears, but he’s smiling.

“But I’m YOUR asshole,” I say and hug him tight.

 

Watching Tyler grow smaller and smaller through the back window of the van is probably the single most painful thing I’ve ever had to endure. That’s what sucks about being a psychic: you don’t just have one person’s sadness in your head; you have everyone else’s, too. Alexa says there’s a way for me to control that, but it’s so hard. She says it’s because I’m so powerful. “Off-the-charts powerful,” she said.

 _I love you, Ty_ , I think.

A second later, _I love you, too, Jish._

After that, I fish my phone and my earbuds out of my pocket and proceed to listen to the ten songs Tyler and I recorded together over and over until I eventually fall asleep.

 

It’s nice being woken up by mother the next morning. I couldn’t bear being at our apartment while Josh is away. The quiet at night would drive me insane. I’m sharing my old room with Zack, who groans and turns over when Mom leaves.

“I might be making pancakes,” I whisper near his ear and jerk out of the way, laughing, when he sits up abruptly.

I find the bathroom, blissfully, empty and fall into the shower immediately. The hot water rinses all the nightmares out of my head. Since I started studying in and working for Josh’s department, I’ve been doing cleansings with them and going on expeditions and helping case calls for Alexa. My reward for this has been endless night terrors. I’ve mostly got a handle on them and can tell myself it’s a dream, but this brings with it a whole other set of problems: like not being able to wake up sometimes.

It’s been five years since we moved into the haunted house that led to me discovering my gift and meeting Josh. They’ve been the five craziest years of my life. I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy, but, at the same time, I wouldn’t trade them for anything else in the world. The things I’ve seen are enough to tip most sane people over the edge entirely and the only reason I don’t have a permanent booking for a pillow room and a self-love jacket is because of my amazing new friends. They’re like my second family, though my mom treats them more like our extended family and has them all over for dinner once a week. We literally even have photos of us and the happy couple at Lynn and Alexa’s wedding on our mantel among other family photos.

“Tyler, you promised me pancakes and then you hogged the bathroom. They better have chocolate chips in them and be covered in syrup on my plate when I get downstairs,” Zack warns.

“You have drool on your shirt,” I say as I pass him and head downstairs.

I find Mom fiddling with the coffee machine while everyone else is seated around the breakfast nook like zombies. I offer to make chocolate chip pancakes and then all eyes are alert and on me.

“I’ll help!” says Maddie, her bright violet eyes shining.

On campus later, I’m sitting behind Lynn’s desk and texting Josh. They’re still on the road. He’s dying of boredom because his iPad and his laptop died. I tell him how basketball practice went and how our prep for the big music showcase is coming along – not that much has changed since last week, but couples discuss their days when they’re apart to feel closer together and it makes a fractional difference in how much I miss him. He tells me how Brian and Alex are sickening to be around and Alexa refuses to let anyone else drive, but he’s happy he got the whole backseat to himself. He also says they should be at the first stop on the tour at 19:00.

“What’s the place again?” I send.

“The Overlook. It’s supposed to be majorly haunted,” Josh replies.

“Well, shit. Don’t die, Jish.”

“I won’t. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“So, THIS is where you hide,” a familiar voice says and I jump so hard I drop my phone.

“Damn it, Ryan!” I say, my heart pounding erratically.

“Why are you sitting in the whacko department? I went to look for you in the gym, but one of the beauties there told me you were here. I didn’t even know where ‘here’ was. He had to draw me a map,” Ryan Ross explains and holds up said map.

“Um, I study-slash-work here,” I say.

“Why?” the look on Ryan’s face is so comical that I burst out laughing.

I have him entirely frazzled by the time I manage to get myself under control.

“Listen, Loony Tunes, these two lovely, desperate freshmen girls and I are going out to get entirely shit-faced tonight and you are going to put your Josh-moping aside and come with,” he states.

“Am I your Amish cousin again?” I ask, half-smirking.

“Unless you wanna get in on it?” he offers.

“What part of I-did-not-even-come-out-my-mother’s-vagina-at-birth gay is beyond you?” I ask and get up to make myself a cup of coffee to go.

“I once knew a guy who claimed to be that level of straight. Didn’t stop him from banging me so hard from behind that I couldn’t sit for a week, though,” Ryan overshares as usual.

“I’ll come out with you, but I’m not drinking and I’m not going home with you and those girls. They’re children, Ross. It’s inhumane for them to even be subjected to you, let alone a guy who will probably see them naked and pass out,” I say, not unkindly, and hand him a cup of coffee, too.

“Whatever, Joseph. Meet you at the Conserve?”

“Six o’ clock.”

 

We check in at the hotel at 19:07, which, I’m reluctant to admit, I actually hope is a good sign for the rest of our stay here. Alexa looked antsy driving up to the place, but now she looks like she’s practically vibrating with energy. I usually try to stay out of everyone’s heads as far as possible, but when she brushes up against me at the front desk, I’m absolutely slammed with how terrified she is.

_That’s not foreboding at all._

“Good evening. I booked the rooms under ‘San Roman’,” she says to the desk clerk.

“Ah, yes. Two rooms, is that correct?” the girl asks, eyeing the five of us with not a little disdain.

“That is correct,” Lynn interjects, glaring at her with a ferocity singular to Lynn Gunn.

She hands Alexa the keys and then rings for two bellhops to come take our luggage. Brian has a small conniption when the one slightly manhandles one of his tech-cases. Alex grabs his hand and starts tracing soothing circles on the back of it with his thumb. I opt for just carrying my backpack with my tech in myself.

We get in the elevator that takes us up to our floor. When the doors close, laughter sounds up and I glance around to see who it is, but everyone has expressions of exhaustion and irritation on their faces. The laughter swells until it sounds like at least five people, but it’s not the only sounds I’m hearing: the clinking of glasses, the rustle of fur (not that I have ever heard what that sounds like), the slosh of liquid as it spills on the floor.

Then the world shimmers and suddenly the floor of the elevator is covered in splashes of champagne, interspersed with shiny shoes. I let my eyes travel upwards, along legs of fancily dressed men and women. I blink and shake my head, but the image holds. The one lady, tall even for someone in high heels, has a huge swath of fur wrapped around her shoulders and her make-up makes her look kind of tartish. It smells stiflingly of cologne and perfume and booze and smoke. My eyes water and I begin coughing. One of the men turns to me, smiles and offers me a drag of his cigar. I wave it away, my lungs burning as a violent cough wracks through me. I feel my throat close up, but I’m too busy coughing to be able to reach for my inhaler.

When the elevator finally opens, the partygoers get out and I follow them dazedly, all thoughts of my inability to breathe forgotten. They disappear around a corner and everything goes black.


	2. Log 2

_“So, we can rate the level of haunted this hotel is at about a hundred. I’m psychic; I don’t commune with the dead, but I just had a full-on encounter. They used Alexa to materialize, channeling themselves through her. The quality was vivid and all-consuming. I literally got an asthma-attack from the overwhelming stench of all the cologne, perfume and smoke – and they were just ghosts. If it wasn’t for Alex…”_

_~ off-camera ~_

_Alex: “No worries, buddy.”_

_~ on-camera ~_

_“The rest of the team tried to get me and especially Alexa to take it easy tonight, but she won’t hear it and I’m fine. It’s our first night here. In case you’re wondering where ‘here’ is, it’s the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. It’s supposedly the most haunted building in the whole of the US and we’re here on request from one of the staff. We’re going to meet him now. We might have footage of the meeting later._

_“Until then, stay street. Stay strong. Live on.”_    

 

I grin at my phone. Apparently, the only way Josh and the others can get into the lounge where the guy they’re seeing works is by dressing up. It’s like a group prom photo, except everyone looks hot. Lynn and Alexa look like Goth runway models. The guys all look like they walked straight off the pages of a fashion magazine. Josh in a tux will forever be my end. All the black sets off the bright red of his hair gorgeously. I could maul him…

“What’s funny?” asks Ryan.

“Huh? Oh, nothing,” I say and slip my phone back into my pocket.

“Oh, no. I know that face,” says one of the girls. I think her name is Shelley. “It’s a girl, right?”

I give her my most expressionless look.

“A boy,” decides the other one, Jenna. “I knew it the moment I saw you.”

“I like her,” I say to Ryan.

“Is he cute? What’s his name?” Shelley wants to know and she and Jenna abandon Ryan to crowd around me.

I get the most venomous look Ryan’s adorable face is capable of. I try my best to suppress a smile, but it doesn’t go so well.

“He is absolutely adorable and his name is Josh Dun. He works at the university, actually. He teaches.”

“Really? What subject?” Jenna asks.

“Do you have a photo?” Shelley requests eagerly.

“Um, sure,” I say and take out my phone again. “History of the Supernatural.”

Jenna makes a face.

“Is that even a thing?”

“Yes. He and I work together in the Spectral Occurrences Department. It’s not very well-known and it doesn’t have the best rep, but we help a lot of people,” I explain while scrolling though my photos to find a nice one to show them.

I find the ones of us at the beach. We decided to go surfing one summer, since we both knew how, but never get around to it. His hair was candy pink then and the abs and pecs he was going for were coming along nicely. I show them two photos: one he took while I kissed him on the cheek and another one Maddie took of both of us just before we went into the water with our boards.

“Oh my God, he’s so HOT,” gushes Shelley.

“LOVE both your ink,” says Jenna. “Also, I think I’ve seen your boy around the Conserve. Visiting you, most probably.”

I smile. I feel like Jenna and I could be friends.

“He’s away, at the moment. He and the rest of the department are on tour with Alexa San Roman fighting ghosts. I was supposed to go with them, but I’m here on a basketball scholarship and if I don’t play every game, they stop funding me.”

“So, like, ghosts are real?” Shelley asks.

“Very real. The supernatural are very much a force to be reckoned with. I got into this, because our house was haunted by a tonne of poltergeists. Josh taught gym at my school back then. I asked him to help out and he and the rest of the team managed to save my little sister who was taken,” I recount.

“What did they want with your sister?” Jenna asks.

“She was supposed to help them move on.”

“Why her?”

“She’s has the Gift of Seeing. She’s a medium,” I say when Jenna looks like I lost her. “She can see, speak to and command the dead.”

“Holy shit. I thought that was just carnie stuff,” she says.

“A lot of the time it is. Maddie’s extremely powerful. Alexa is a medium, too, but she isn’t half as gifted as Maddie. Maddie learns from her, though. Alexa trains us all.”

I think this is the first time I actually taste the Coke when I take a swig.

“So, if I were to tell you that I think I’m being haunted by the ghost of my dead cat, would you be able to tell me if I’m right?” she asks, a half-smile on her face.

“I can tell you right now that you’re not. Animals carry no soul-signature. They have no spirit, so they can’t have ghosts,” I say.

“You’re just a treasure trove of useless information, aren’t you, Joseph?” Ryan says, looking sour.

“I’m sorry. Ryan came here to get drunk and have a good time and I’m sitting here, talking homework. You guys have fun. I’m gonna excuse myself,” I say and get up to leave. “It was nice meeting you, ladies.”

I wave to Ryan after putting on my jacket and head for the door.

“Hey! Wait!”

Turning, I see Jenna jogging to catch up. I stop and wait for her.

“Those two have been hot for each other all night. No offense to your friend, but he’s not really my type. A little too emo Beatles-wannabe,” she says as she tugs on her gloves.

“I feel that. He’s a fun guy, but I can never bring myself to spend more than an hour with him without feeling dirty.”

This makes her laugh. She has a sweet laugh. She’s kind of what I expect Maddie to be like at this age, down to the edgy blonde bob.

“So, are you gifted?” Jenna asks, looking up at me curiously.

“That’s what they tell me. It doesn’t usually feel like a gift. More just a part of who I am,” I say.

“What, uh, do you do?” she asks, frowning at herself.

“I prefer the Biblical terms: I have the Gift of Prophecy and Knowing. I can predict the future.”

“Oh, like a clairvoyant?”

“Exactly.”

We walk for a while in silence while she toys with this new idea. She looks up at me a few times as if to ask something, but then stops herself. After another three minutes of this, I spot a coffee vendor to our right and step under its awning.

“A flat white for me, please. You want anything?” I ask her.

“Uh, I’ll have a hot chocolate, thanks,” she says to the barista. She thanks me and we sit down at the single table to wait for our order.

“You gonna ask me what you wanna ask me or are you going to torture yourself all night?” I ask her, an amused smile on my face.

“This is going to sound really stupid, but I’ve been feeling kind of unsure of the career path I chose. Does it work like that? Could you tell me whether I chose wisely or not? Am I being stupid?” she asks hesitantly.

I take her hand and close my eyes for a moment. My psyche brushes up against hers and my eyes fly open. I see cameras, lights, lots of scripts, awards, traveling, many people and so much happiness. Light floods through all these images and they glow warm and sure.

When I let go, she and the barista holding our drinks are staring at me.

“Your…eyes,” Jenna manages.

“Purple?”

She and the barista nod in unison.

“Jenna, are you doing music right now?” I ask her and hold out my hand for my coffee.

“Um, yes,” she answers and takes her hot chocolate.

The barista walks back to her counter, dazed and confused.

“You should switch to acting. You’re a stupendous actress.”

“I…really?”

“Definitely. Now, do you need a ride anywhere?” I say as I stand.

“My apartment, if you don’t mind,” she says.

 

The raised lettering above the entrance says “Colorado Lounge”. When Alex throws open the doors, I see why we had to dress up.

“Swanky,” I comment and Lynn gives me a slightly nervous look.

“Who are we here to see?” asks Brian.

“Him,” I say and nod to the small stage.

In the centre of it, on the mic, is a man in a snazzy, embroidered, black suit. His dark hair is swept back, out of his face, and his grip and handle of the mic is as if he’s caressing a lover.

None of that is what I notice first and foremost, however. He’s surrounded by this pulsing purple hue. Everyone in the room’s attention is riveted to him. He commands the stage. Even the band members accompanying him all look transfixed. That’s when I notice the bright purple streak in his hair, stretching from his forehead to the back of his head.

I lead us to a table near the stage and get off my weakening knees gratefully. A waiter comes over dazedly and asks if we want drinks. Alexa orders a bottle of white wine for the table and 6 glasses.

When his song ends, our guy walks off stage to join us.

“Wine?” Alexa offers.

“Yes, please. Brendon Urie, a real pleasure to meet all of you,” he says and holds out his hand for everyone to shake.

_Especially you, Joshua Dun._

_It’s Josh,_ I manage before I realize what’s going on and shut him out of my head.

“You should try the steak, it’s phenomenal,” Brendon says.

“So, Mr. Urie, what can we do for you?” Lynn asks before taking a sip of her wine. “Also, would you be okay with us filming this?”

“Straight to the point. I like it. Um, weren’t we having this filmed, anyway?”

“Oh, my crew comes in tomorrow. This is archival footage to help with the investigation. Is it cool?” Alexa says.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Well, this hotel needs a cleansing. A major one. Especially…especially since my daughter’s ghost is trapped here,” he says, swallowing.

“Your daughter’s…ghost?” Lynn says, smelling a rat. “You know we can’t just cleanse a place of a single spirit, right?”

“No, baby. I think what Mr. Urie is trying to explain is that he needs his daughter’s ghost gone along with the others. I’m sorry, sir. I know it must be very tough living with a constant reminder,” Alexa soothes.

“She died because of the other ghosts, didn’t she?” I say, the knowledge coming to me from the troubled man’s aura.

“Uh, yes. They tried to use her as a conduit to manifest themselves and managed, killing her in the process.”

“Why not you?” I ask.

“Why not him what?” asks Brian.

“Oh, Brendon is a psychic, like me,” I explain.

“I’m sure _Mr. Urie_ would’ve preferred to divulge that tidbit of information himself, Josh,” Alexa says through gritted teeth and flashes Mr. Urie an apologetic smile.

He smiles wryly back.

“I don’t mind. Josh and I have shared some intimate communications. I’m a Shiner, it’s true.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex says, looking hesitantly at Alexa. “You’re a what?”

“A Shiner? It’s what my grandma always called us with a gift before she passed. She says we shine with a special energy that regular folks don’t have. We glow like beacons.”

“Your grandmother sounds like a special woman,” says Lynn, smiling. “Was she particularly gifted?”

“She had two gifts, both of which she passed on to me and which I, in turn, passed on separately to each of my daughters. She was a psychic and a cypher,” he recalls fondly.

“Sorry, but you still haven’t answered my question. Why did the spirits use your daughter and not you as their conduit?” I interject.

“Right. It’s simple, actually: I can control my gift to it’s full capacity. My grandma trained me since I can remember. Tilda was still learning, but she and her sister don’t take their training seriously. They feel it makes them freaks – even more so since we decided to homeschool them. We didn’t really have much of a choice, with Sarah and I both having jobs at the hotel and the manager offering to house us for free,” he says with the air of a man who has had to explain this far too many times.

His aura dips a bit and I sense quite a bit of sadness. I resist the urge to reach out and squeeze his hand.

 _It’s the thought that counts_ , he sounds in my head.

_I really am sorry. Being cooped up here with your daughter’s ghost must be extremely hard._

_It’s made harder by the fact that Meredith and Sarah blame_ me _for it._

_They feel you could’ve prevented it?_

_“_ No, they blame me for letting the hotel possess me,” he says aloud.

“Did we miss something…?” Alexa says.

“I might as well be entirely honest with you, since it can probably only help with the cleanse,” Brendon says, steeling himself. “I wasn’t entirely impervious to the hotel’s hold. The reason we came here in the first place was because I needed a fresh start. I was an alcoholic with severe anger issues, you see, and lost my previous job because of this. I used to be a music teacher and the choir conductor of the town’s high-school. I had a bad relationship with one of my choir members who was going through puberty and his fluctuating voice was ruining my tenor section. He called me out one day and, I’m embarrassed to say, I lost my temper and hit him. Suffice it to say, I was fired and without a job.

“My family was already under severe strain because of my drinking. I have taken out my temper on Sarah and the girls before, resulting in Matilda breaking her arm and Meredith having to stay home from school with a black eye for a week. I came here for a fresh start and to save my family. The hotel had other plans, however. It influenced me in a big way and I started getting out-of-control paranoid until one day I snapped.

“Tilda is dead because of me. I killed her. I swear to God, though, I did not do it of my own volition. I don’t even remember doing it. The only details I have of that day are what I’ve gleaned from Sarah and Red. You guys are my last hope. If I don’t fix this, I’ll lose my family forever and without them, I don’t see any other reason to keep on living.”

The look on his face is one I know better than I care to remember. I was exactly where he was when my family kicked me out. I had nothing and no one and I felt so alone. I went from being the son and brother they were all extremely proud of to being the kid they just want to forget. Whenever my parents looked at me, it was with a look of disdain so strong I could feel it radiating off them. Looking back, it was probably my gift. My brother and sisters all looked like I betrayed them. I felt worse than shit.

Matters only got worse when I met Brian. I felt like I needed to win his approval constantly. Everything I did for myself, he turned into something I did _against_ him. He’s different these days, though. I feel like Alex was the better guy for him in more ways that one. When Brian and I spoke a year after our nasty break-up five years ago, he apologized first. He admitted to his control issues and apologized for letting them hurt me. He said he was glad I was happy with Tyler. I commented on how happy he and Alex looked and he smiled and said that they were.

All I know is Tyler saved me and I can never see myself stop loving him.

“We’ll do whatever we can,” I promise.

 

 _“They can get wifi up there?”_ Tyler asks.

“We’re as surprised as you, dude,” calls Alex who’s getting ready for bed.

“You should’ve seen the guy we met tonight, Ty. Super gifted and he has an amazing voice,” I recount, my eyes on his instead of the webcam.

_“He’s a singer?”_

“Yeah. That’s what he does here. He sings in the lounge downstairs. He and his family live and work here,” I explain.

 _“That’s pretty rad, but also kind of isolated,”_ Ty says, looking a little sad for Brendon’s sake.

“It got to him, actually. Alex should have the footage on our website tomorrow, then you can hear his story. It’s killer,” I say, mentally slapping myself for the terrible, unintentional pun.

 _“I went out with Ryan and two girls tonight. The one, Jenna, was really cool and super into what we do. The other was just interested in who she got to go home with,”_ Tyler says, looking tired.

“I take it you’re just as tired as I am, then?”

 _“Maybe not THAT tired, but I could break a bed,”_ he admits around a yawn.

Sleepy Tyler is the cutest Tyler.

“Goodnight, then, Babyboy,” I say.

_“Goodnight, love.”_

I close Skype and then my laptop.

“Do you really think it’s the best idea for him to find out about your moment in the elevator so impersonally?” Alex asks, his back to me in the bed he and Brian share.

“I was kinda of hoping he would freak out less if he saw that I was okay afterwards,” I say, sheepishly.

“You know Tyler.”

“Yeah…”

 

_I am standing in an unfamiliar hallway. The walls around me are an oldish and fading yellow and the carpet beneath my feet a dark forest green. Other than that, it’s pretty nondescript._

_THUNK._

_“Where are you all hiding? Come out and take your damn medicine!”_

Brian?

_THUNK._

_“ALEXA, you know-it-all bitch! I’ll show you. COME HERE AND TAKE YOUR FUCKING MEDICINE!”_

_He’s coming closer and closer and I have nowhere to hide._

_“Brian! Let us help you. Let ME help. Please, you’re scaring us,” Josh’s voice pipes up from behind a door to my left._

_“I’ll fucking kill you, Dun. You bastard! Come out and I’ll show you scary!”_

_There’s a scraping behind the door Josh spoke through. Room 217. My mind registers this as being extremely significant for some reason._

_A scream. Josh screaming, pleading, whimpering._

_“COME TAKE YOUR FUCKING MEDICINE!”_

_THUNK._

I sit up so suddenly that the world around me spins. My chest rises and falls unevenly, my breaths tear out of me.

“Tyler, ah yoo ‘kay?” Zack asks, drowsily.

“I need…” I start, the cogs in my mind turning

“What?” he asks, waking up a little.

“I need to be wrong. Oh, God, please let me be wrong.”


	3. Log 3

_“I don’t need to hear from any of you that this is dangerous."_

_~ traffic sounds in the background as Tyler drives to campus ~_

_"If it wasn’t for my damn scholarship, I’d probably be on the Interstate right now and that WOULD be dangerous._

_“I had a vision. You’re all going to die if I don’t help. I can’t just let you die. So, I’m making this video and sending it to Alex so he can save it and you guys can keep things straight on your end. The story, I mean. Nothing is straight with Brian gay-ing up place.”_

_~ nervous giggle ~_

_“Okay, here it is: Josh, you HAVE to stay OUT of room 217. It’s imperative – life or fucking death – that you STAY AWAY from there. You hear me? STAY. AWAY._

_“Brian, buddy, I know you and I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, but you have to listen to me, okay? For some reason that hotel targets you. It’s going to try its damnedest to get at you and you CANNOT LET IT. If you do… It’s not pretty, man. You have to fight it, okay? Remember, you and I spoke about this: that noose around your mind is a leash, okay? YOU have control, control DOES NOT have you._

_“I love you guys. Stay alive, friends.”_

As Tyler’s last words settle in around us, a chill so violent it makes me jerk once creeps up my spine. Alexa gives me a calculating look, but seems to decide I’m not being possessed. We all sit in an awkward silence for a while.

“Well, I, for one, feel fine,” pipes up Brian.

His voice sounds like a glass smashing on tiles in the quiet.

“Yeah, for now,” Lynn says, “but when have Tyler’s predictions ever been off? Even a little?”

“There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?” Alex says.

“True, but Tyler’s gift is divine. We should treat it as gospel and work towards preventing it, if possible,” Alexa says and gets up.

“Is everything a fucking job to you?” Brian spits at her.

Alexa stops and turns to him.

“I just got told that I might go berserk and kill you guys and you,” he widens his eyes at her, “are talking probabilities and technicalities like I’m just another part of your case. No wonder Lynn fucking dumped you when she did. Stone-fucking-cold.”

At this, Brian storms out of the room, Alex en tow.

Alexa looks from Lynn to me and back at Lynn and then back at me.

“Was I insensitive?” she asks, a hint of desperation in her voice.

“No,” Lynn dismisses, pulling a face and shaking her head.

“A little,” I say.

“Thanks, Lynn,” Alexa says and storms out, too.

“Thanks, Josh,” says Lynn and aims to follow Alexa before stopping and turning back to me. “She was a bit harsh, though, right?”

“Just a bit.”

“I’ll sort it out with her and Alex will probably smooth things over with Brian. Why don’t you see if you can find Mr. Urie? Maybe he can give you a tour of the hotel and you can EMF the place,” she requests, takes a deep breath and sets after her wife.

I decide to take a shower first. In the bathroom, I see that the red in my hair is starting to fade into a dull cherry color. In my bag, I find my tub of bright red Manic Panic and take it back to the bathroom. It takes about fifteen minutes to wash the red back into my hair. I took my shirt off to keep it from staining, but now I have splashes of bright red all over my chest. Trying to avoid seeing it for what it looks like, I strip down to my skivvies and get into the shower.

Half an hour later, I’m in the lobby. At first, asking the desk clerk if she knows where Brendon might be seems like the best idea, but then I have a self-identifying moment and shut my eyes.

_Brendon?_

_Good morning, Josh Dun. Sleep well?_

_Um, yeah, thanks. You?_

_Somewhat. Would you like to join me for breakfast? I’m in the lounge. You don’t have to change._

_That’d actually be great. Thanks._

I find him sitting at the same table we occupied the previous evening, sipping on coffee. He pulls out a chair for me next to him and I sink into it, eyeing his coffee hungrily. He snaps his fingers twice and a waiter appears from which he orders a fresh pot of coffee and another mug.

“So, what can I do for you?” Brendon asks, giving me a tired smile.

“Lynn asks if you could maybe give me a tour of the hotel. I have to measure the spectral energy of the place,” I explain.

“Sounds super technical… You could just use your gift, you know,” he says as my coffee comes.

“Really?” I say as I pour myself a mug.

“Yeah. Since being psychic is all about seeing and feeling energies, we just need to let ourselves tap into aura of a place and we can see whatever we need – and, between you and me, sometimes a little more than we need,” he says with a wink.

I smile slightly.

“I’ll take you around the place after we have some grub. My wife and daughter will be joining us soon, if that’s okay?” he asks.

I nod while sipping on my coffee. It’s not the way Tyler makes it, but it’ll have to do.

Brendon and I sit and chat about music for a while. He tells me all about his teenage years as the frontman for a pretty cool punk band and how music was always his passion. He even got kicked out of his parents house because he chose music over the calling of the church. Music is his religion, which I find a little corny, but I didn’t say it.

I tell him about hunting ghosts with Tyler and about our own little musical endeavor. He demands to hear it, since I heard him play last night. So, I find my favorite song amongst the ones we recorded. It’s called ‘Kitchen Sink’ and it’s so beautiful. Ty has SUCH a knack for lyrics. Before the chorus can even start, Brendon is geeking out like crazy. I grin despite myself.

Soon after the end of the song, we’re joined by Sarah and Meredith Urie. Sarah looks well put together and mom-ish. The idea of her as the hotel’s concierge suits her well. Meredith – or as she prefers to be called, Red - looks like her attitude alone could beat the shit out of a truck driver. She doesn’t greet me. Just holds out her hand for me to shake and sits down to bury her nose in a book. Her _pierced_ nose, which is just one of the many piercings she has: her left eyebrow, her bottom lip once on each side, big gauges wink from under her hair and a small ball glints from either side of her clavicles on both sides. Her flannel shirt is rolled up to the middle of her forearms and both arms are tattooed. Her hair is a violent ginger, which actually looks natural, but the rest of her is monochrome black: her make-up, her piercings, her clothes – save for her flannel which is checked black and grey. She could actually be beautiful if your first impression of her wasn’t that you should run the other way.

“So, your dad tells me you’re gifted,” I try to make polite conversation with the sullen girl.

I get glared at from over the top of her book – which I notice is a well-worn copy of _Carrie –_ but no other response.

“Meredith doesn’t speak,” Sarah informs me through tight lips and without looking at me.

“Which is hilarious, since she has the Gift of Tongues. A waste if you ask me, but people rarely do,” says Brendon, his tone a mixture of sarcasm and frustration.

“We hear your voice enough,” Sarah bites back calmly.

Thankfully, we’re saved by the reappearance of the waiter. We order our breakfast, Brendon ordering for Red. When he mentions bacon, he suddenly goes quiet and looks over at Red.

“Sorry, wrong breakfast. Make it muesli, diced fruit – no strawberries – and strawberry yoghurt with green tea and a slice of lemon, no milk. Thanks, Eric.”

“Coming right up, Brendon.”

“‘Brendon’? Another one of your conquests, dear?” Sarah asks sweetly, her voice dripping venom.

“Actually, I’m just not stuck up enough to care what the wait-staff call me, darling,” he retaliates.

_You two can’t even quit it in front of a guest. Send my breakfast upstairs._

Then Red gets up and storms off.

 _Sorry, by the way_ , she thinks in my direction.

 _Not your fault, kid_ , I think back.

_It actually is._

“Coach, please? They need me. It’s literally life or death. I can’t just leave them up there unwarned.”

“And you expect me to believe in that clappy-trappy ghost BS?” Coach asks, following a play across the court.

I haven’t even bothered to change into my training uniform. I’m definitely NOT staying. I just don’t want to come back to a mountain of student debt. I’m stressed out enough as it is.

“You believe in good-luck charms, but not ghosts?” I ask.

“You’re our good-luck charm because you’re good. No superstition involved,” he counters.

“And what if I told you we’ll win the next three games – without me?” I say as it comes to me.

“More of your so-called superpowers, Joseph?”

“Tell you what, let me leave and if we lose, you can revoke my scholarship. Deal?”

I send up a little prayer.

“Fine, but if we lose this weekend’s game, you hightail it back here. Understood?” Coach orders.

“Understood. Thanks, Coach!” I call as I dash out of the gym towards the Conserve.

Convincing Prof. Toro wasn’t that tough, since the showcase is still two months away. He wishes me safe travels and good luck. Outside the theatre, I run smack into Ryan.

“Whoa, what the hell, Tyler?” he says, steadying me before I can tumble to the ground.

“I have to go. Josh and everyone else is in trouble. I need to go help them…”

“Slow down. What about your scholarship?” he demands.

“Taken care of. I have to GO–”

“Dude, you’re in a state. You cannot drive all the way up a mountain in Colorado by yourself. Gimme, like, half an hour to get a temp to take my classes and I’ll come with you. NO excuses,” Ryan soothes, straightening my clothes worriedly.

Ryan and I met when I started taking his History of Music class in my freshman year. I couldn’t take him seriously as a lecturer at first because he looks so young. Turns out he’s a Josh-case and was only a year older than me at the time. He’s a total lunatic, but he has the softest heart. Doesn’t mean I want him in harm’s way, though.

“Ryan, listen, I need to ask you a huge favor,” I start. He looks at me like he’s waiting for me to go on, so I do. “I need you to drive me to the hotel and then come back. You can’t stay. It’s just not safe and I will never forgive myself if something were to happen to you.”

The seriousness on my face convinces him.

“Deal. I’ll take the next three days off, then, and we’ll road-trip.”

 

As Brendon and I rush through the hotel, I am burning to ask him about Red. I felt the pain in her head. I couldn’t not. She slammed me with it. She blames herself for Matilda’s death somehow. I need to know what happened exactly. Somehow, I feel that this investigation won’t lead anywhere without that information.

“Bre–”

He throws open a door so hard that it ricochets off the wall behind it. He shoves it out of the way and practically runs down the stairs. I follow close behind, ready to grab him if he slips. He must come down here a lot, though, because he doesn’t lose his footing once and it’s pitch black at the bottom. He grabs into the blackness and there’s a click and then light floods into the room.

Then there’s the smack of his foot hitting one of the boxes and the box goes sailing through the air, spilling old magazines as it goes.

“Hey! Brendon, hey!” I try, but he just keeps kicking boxes and punching walls and screaming through broken sobs.

_BRENDON!_

This seems to calm him a little and he stops moving, instead dropping his head into his hands and crying into them.

_I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry._

I do walk over to him now. Pulling him to me, I let him cry onto my shoulder. Truth be told, Sarah _does_ blame him for Matilda. I feel it every time she speaks to him or looks in his direction. She’s toxic to be around. She’s killing him with all her hatred.

_I’m so, so sorry. Oh, God, I’m sorry._

_Brendon, you need to stop. Sssshhhhh. It’s okay. Listen to me, it’s not your fault. It’s not. We’re going to fix this, I promise._

I try to pour as much soothing energy into him as I can. He’s slipping into hysteria, his apologies an unbroken loop in his head. He’s remembering what it felt like to kill Matilda. He was so angry and drunk.

I grab him by the shoulders and shake him, hard. His eyes open wide and he takes me in as if only just noticing that I’m here. His hands knot in the front of my shirt and he pulls me to him.

_I’m sorry._

Then he’s kissing me. Hot and rough and desperate. My head spins out of control and I kiss him back. He’s so strong against me, his lips soft and his breathing ragged. He practically tears my shirt off, his nails scraping against my chest and I moan, unbidden. Somehow, I get his shirt off, too, and push him up against the wall.

We make-out for a while, the kisses getting heavier and hotter. My hands find the waistband of his jeans and I hook my fingers over it, pulling him to me. His hands, light on my shoulders, become strong and he crushes our bodies together.

I feel his hard-on through our jeans and grind against him, making him gasp and dig his nails into my back. I push harder and I feel him break skin, my shoulders burning where he tore into the muscle.

“F-FUCK,” I gasp.

“If you want,” Brendon breathes, smirking against my mouth.

When he undoes my pants, I feel more turned on than I have in years. I’m so hard, it’s almost painful. If only he would…

“Aahhh, my GOD,” I moan as he takes me in his mouth. I knot my fingers into his hair automatically.

Despite being so ready to come even before he started, I get even harder as he teases me.

_So, who’s better? Me or your little boyfriend?_

Tyler.

I push him off me. The moment he stops touching me, I feel entirely drained, like when you come down from a contact-high. That’s it, though, isn’t it? None of those feelings were mine. Not one. They were his, projected onto me. He overwhelmed me.

“You took advantage of me, you asshole,” I spit at him.

“ _That’s_ what you’re going with? You seemed more than willing to get up-close and personal before,” he says, straightening up lazily.

“It’s called consolation, douchebag. You were freaking out and I was trying to calm you down. Is sex always your response when someone tries to be nice to you?” I rage, getting back into my clothes. “I have a right fucking mind to go to Alexa and ask that we leave.”

This shocks him.

“I…Josh, please. Don’t. I… Fuck, I just wanted to feel something other than depressed for once!”

I sigh.

“I understand. Not that I’ve lost someone like you have, but I know what it’s like to feel you have nothing and no one and that you’re worthless. No one deserves that. Your wife? She’s a bitch, dude. You deserve better. So much better. Just…you gotta let me help, man. Instead of taking what you want, let me give you what you need. Alright?” I say, standing right in front of him.

Brendon ducks his head a little shamefully, wiping at his mouth.

“You’re a good kisser, Josh Dun,” he murmurs.

I grin, despite the situation. He’s convinced; I feel it.

“So I’ve been told – by my little boyfriend,” I quip.

“Touché,” he says, grinning.

“You owe me a shirt, you bastard,” I say, holding up the tattered remains of on of my favorites: a black and white t-shirt where the section around my chest and shoulders is black with white stars and the bottom half is plain white.

“Hold on,” he says and starts looking around the room.

I do the same, trying to figure out where we are exactly. There are old boxes filled with newspapers and magazines and books everywhere. A lot of them are wet at the bottom, some being eaten away by mold. Off to the one side, right across from the staircase we came down, is a big, red, metal tank with pipes branching off it of the same metal.

“Brendon, are we in the boiler room?” I ask.

“Uh, yeah. Heart of the hotel. If there is anything to be gleaned from this hotel’s spiritual history, this is the place to be,” he says and fishes out a purple t-shirt from an old gym bag and hands it to me.

I slip it on while he explains. It feels a little like a wetsuit, but I don’t really have other options.

“Since you’re new at this, we’re gonna do it a little differently than normal. I’m going in with you. No offense, dude, but you are out-of-control strong.” I nod sagely and he continues. “I’ll help keep you focused. There are certain…instances in the history of the hotel you have to see. Mine included.”

“But Brendon…”

“You’re going to help me, then, okay?” he says, eyes wide and pleading.

“Yes. I’ll do all I can,” I promise.

“Then buckle up, Dun, ‘cause here comes the REAL ride,” he says and steps past me, going back to place where I had him against the wall earlier.

My face starts heating up, but I shove the blush down.

I join him there. He mimics placing his hand on the wall and I oblige, feeling the rough texture against my slightly calloused palm. Taking my other hand in his, he tells me to close my eyes.

“Focus, Josh. Feel the thrum of life in these walls. Let the hotel remember for you. SEE.”

But before he even finishes, I find myself in the lounge, now a ballroom. It was packed to the proverbial rafters with partygoers from a bygone era. The music is pure jazz and the dancing so authentically Gatsby that I smile.  In front of me passes the woman with the fur around her shoulders that I saw in the elevator – was it really just last night? – going to meet up with the man that offered me a drag of his cigar.

“It was a mass shooting,” Brendon explains, tightening his grip on my hand.

As he speaks, gunshots sound up, piercing and deafening. Everyone in the ballroom is mowed down, expensively clad bodies piling on the dance-floor. Their clothes and accessories make them all look like store-mannequins or wax models.

The scene changes.

I’m in a hotel room. There is man and a woman, fighting. She screams at him about sluts and whores. He screams at her about money. He smacks her across the face and I automatically step forward to intervene.

“You can’t change the past, Josh. Don’t interfere,” Brendon warns and pulls me back.

I’m thankful for his hand in mine.

The man storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The woman, her nose bleeding and left eye swelling up, heads for the bathroom. We follow. There, she runs a bath and strips. I look at Brendon and pull a face.

“You gays and lady parts. What do you think they have down there, a gnome?” Brendon teases.

“I have always hoped to never find out,” I say and smirk.

As soon as she’s comfortable in the water, we hear the hotel room door open again. It ricochets off the wall and into the bathroom storms the man. Without much preamble, he wraps his hands around the woman’s throat and proceeds to choke the life out of her. The faucets are still running, so the bath not only overflows, but water splashes everywhere. I squeeze the circulation out of Brendon’s hand to keep from running at the guy.

Another scene change.

A little boy playing in one of the rooms with pretty expensive-looking toys. A woman joins him, the right age to be his mother, but not the right nationality for the parenthood to be biological. He calls her by her first name, Greta, anyway. They play and she takes him for food and outside to the topiary. We see his parents separately once each for very brief periods of time and they just come to give Greta her orders.

At some point, Greta has to leave the little boy to take an important call at the front desk. The little boy then decides that this would be the perfect time to go through his parents’ stuff. In the drawer of his mother’s bedside table he finds a small handgun. Needless to say, not long after his little brains are painting the wall.

The next scene appears and Brendon’s grip on my hand is strong enough to break bones.

I see him with Sarah and the girls – twins, I see now. Identical, but in no way alike. Matilda is soft with pastels and hair down her back, her skin clear and unmarred and her body delicate-looking. Her ectoplasmic manifestation is a streak in her hair like her father. Meredith, in comparison, looks even scarier than when I met her on her own and, I’m amused to see, her manifestation is on her lips: both bright violet. The two girls, despite their differences, were always inseparable. Brendon would sing every night and get roaringly drunk after. It was always then that Sarah took the girls and left. Brendon brought quite a few people down to the boiler room with him, men and women.

I feel him silently shake beside me and turn to see him sobbing into his one hand. I pull him closer and wrap my arm around his shoulders. He sobs into my neck instead.

Then come the instances of drunken ‘hallucinations’ where he would lose himself in the history of the hotel and Matilda would have to help him find his way back. The spirits needed him to help them materialize, but his training prevented that without fail. Eventually, during one of the times Matilda had to help him, they used her. Her streak bleached white entirely and the spirits went for her father immediately.

“We can stop now, Brendon. You don’t have to relive this,” I say quietly, tilting my face to see his.

I feel him nod and I focus on my hand on the wall of the boiler room. I feel the bricks again and the scene dissolves around us.

“Thank you,” he says thickly and moves towards the stairs, his arms wrapped around his chest.

“I need to talk to Red,” I decide.

“If she’ll even talk to you,” he says as he starts climbing.

“She will.”


	4. Log 4

_“Just a little bit of an update: I had a very…interesting tour of the building this morning. As pretext, though, I have to post other video material. What you are about to hear may shock some of you. Then again, you are here because we hunt ghosts.”_

_~ interview with Brendon plays ~_

_“I asked him to help me EMF the place earlier, but he did me one better. He showed me how we can use our gift to tap into the psychic energy of a place. I saw some really intense things. Did any of you know there was a mass-shooting here in the 20s? Anyway, I promised Brendon I’d help him, but I still feel a part of the story is missing. I need to speak with his one living daughter. I will attempt this soon._

_“Good news is that Tyler gets here tomorrow. He’s still safe, by the way. He texted me when they had signal earlier. He and a friend of his are driving as fast as they can to get here. Apparently, Ty had another vision. It’ll just be great to see him. I miss him so much…_

_“Listen to me, right? It’s only been three days and I’m acting as though I haven’t seem him in months.”_

_~ mumbles ~_

_“A guilty conscience will do that to a guy…_

_“Anyway, I’ll log again as soon as I talked to the girl. Stay street. Stay Strong. Live on.”_

I find Alex and Brian talking in the hallway outside our room, their heads together and their voices barely above a whisper. Brian looks scared and Alex reaches out to put his hand on the other man’s face. This appears to console Brian a little and he almost smiles. I don’t know who the hell Alex Babinski is, but he must be magic. Talk about soothing the savage beast.

“Sorry, guys, but have you seen Alexa?” I ask.

“She’s shooting,” Brian answers. “You have news?”

“Yeah. The hotel IS majorly haunted and I need to speak to Meredith Urie, Brendon’s other kid,” I say, unthinkingly.

“Getting a little buddy-buddy there with the assignment, Josh?” Brian says, narrowing his eyes at me.

I frown.

“He asked me to call him Brendon,” I say.

“Then maybe he’s the one getting too familiar?” Alex says, his big, pale eyes concerned.

This makes me squirm a little. Somehow, Alex has always felt like the psychic one. I shake my head at him and take off down the hall, slipping my earbuds into my ears.

I let my mind wander, scouting for Red. I can’t hone into her energy, so I go about it manually. Earlier, Brendon said she likes reading outside. So, I head for the doors to the back garden.

The first thing that strikes me is the really well done hedge animals. Two lions, a buffalo, a rabbit and a dog. Despite their various bodily positions, they all seem to be staring straight at me. The one lion, the male one, looks especially vicious. I don’t like the look of his teeth.

I look around for Red and spot her reading under a tree. Something out of the corner of my eye makes me look around and – but it can’t be… I refuse to even think it and head straight for the teenager.

_Red?_

She ignores me.

_I know you can hear me. I also know you were blocking me earlier._

More silence.

_Red, please? I need to talk to you about your sister._

_Why don’t you just talk to her?_ comes the response.

 _Because I don’t know how to find her. I only have one question,_ I say as I sit down across from her, cross-legged on the lawn.

She closes her book and sets it down on the ground next to her. Crossing her arms, she gives me an expectant look, not unlike her father’s. Her light green eyes bore into mine.

 _Why did you say your familial problems are your fault?_ I ask.

_Not all of them. Just the ones since Tilda died._

_Okay, why are they your fault?_

_Because my mom blames my dad for Tilda dying, but it isn’t really his fault. I can’t bring myself to tell her, though. Dad has been fucking around for ages – we all know it. Mom had to be there for us, but he got to keep living his pathetic little rockstar dream with no consequences. Tilda and I had this link that existed since our birth and I had to hear constantly, through her, how the wait-staff were discussing what a good lay my dad is. It’s humiliating. I used to believe, soon after my sister was gone, that he deserved to be punished. That my mom hating him is what he had coming to him for being such a sad excuse for a father._

I take in what she says and sympathize. When my dad lost his job back in my third year of varsity, I didn’t even call home to hear how things were. I felt like he deserved to suffer, since he was the one who basically kicked me out when I changed my course and came out to them. I was bitter and I thought I hated him. When it became apparent that things weren’t getting better, though, and they were talking about selling the house and homeschooling my brother and sisters, I offered to help. It was then that Dad and I made peace. I still believe the hardship he faced was necessary for the two of us to come to terms with our relationship.

 _But you said it isn’t his fault. Does that mean you_ don’t _hate him anymore…?_ I ask.

_I still don’t think he’s Father of Year or anything, but I know he’s been trying so hard to make things up to us. I know he blames himself more than Mom and I ever could. I know he and Mom are probably better off divorcing, but he loves me and wants to be a part of my life and, to be honest, I always saw eye-to-eye more with Dad. Tilda was Mom’s favorite._

_Anyway,_ she continues, _it’s not his fault because there’s nothing he could’ve done to stop any of it. The thing with Tilda and I being twins is that our powers only really worked and worked well when we used them together and let ourselves channel the other’s energy. We were spiritually conjoined twins, each getting one of our dad’s gifts instead of one of us getting both. The night Tilda died, I was supposed to be there to help her block out the hotel, but I was scared. I went and hid with Mom. Tilda was always braver than I was. She thought she could save Dad on her own, but Dad coupled with the hotel entirely overpowered her and…she died._

I get so lost in Red’s mind that I don’t notice the tears running down her face until she sobs out loud. The noise is so alien and weird-sounding, that I almost don’t believe it came from her. I scootch closer and take her hand.

_I’m sorry, Red._

She leans forward and puts her forehead to my shoulder.

_It’s a pity I wasn’t born your typical boy and that you’re taken. I would be honored to date you, Josh Dun. You’re so sweet._

_I…I’m sorry. I don’t follow._

Red peers up into my eyes for a moment and then shakes her head.

_Nevermind. Thanks for being a friend._

She takes the hand I was using to hold hers earlier, kisses it and leaves with her book.

 

“Can’t you go any faster?” I ask Ryan, listening to the revs of the car pick up with no relief in sight. This mountain pass is relentless.

“If I could, I would. You might as well relax, Joseph. We’re stuck with each other for another eight hours,” he responds, sucking on his cigarette and ashing out the window.

“Sorry, man. It’s just…it was worse earlier,” I mumble, staring out the window at the landscape of overlapping, deepening shadows. The sun had set maybe an hour ago and everything is in shades of blue and grey. We haven’t even been on the mountain that long, to be honest.

The vision I had in the car earlier is still replaying in my head, albeit fragmented. Josh was standing in front of room 217. I watched him reach out to the doorknob as if hypnotized and then look up and follow something with his eyes that only he could see. He spoke to people that weren’t there – had full conversations with them. Then I was in a room and off to the side lay one of my friends – I couldn’t focus on them enough to see who it was – with their head bashed in, and across from me is a mirror. Reflected in the mirror in bright red lettering was the word ‘REDRUM’, written in blood and dripping down the wall. Next I heard the door swing open and there was a piercing scream, followed by “COME HERE AND TAKE YOUR FUCKING MEDICINE!”

Calling it bone-chilling is a gross understatement.

Ryan freaked out and pulled over to the side of the road. He had to dose me with my inhaler and then I had a seizure and he had to turn me upside down. I woke up covered in bruises and with the inside of my mouth bleeding where I had clenched my teeth on the insides of my cheeks.

Now I’m rocking a weird grimace to keep the cuts in my mouth as far away from my teeth as possible and Ryan keeps sneaking sideways looks at me. LOVE feeling like a basket case.

“Do you want to talk about it? Can you talk about it? I’m not really that well versed in these kinds of things…”

“It’s bad, Ry. Very bad and I need to get there to stop it. That’s all you need to know.”

 _That’s all I can bear to tell you,_ I think.

“So, what do you know about the guy they’re helping?” Ryan asks as if to distract me.

“Um, he’s a singer. A psychic, too, Josh said. He and his wife and kid live up there in the hotel,” I answer gratefully.

“And why did he call again?”

“One of his kids died up there and her ghost haunts the hotel. He wants her spirit laid to rest, but since we can’t do single spirits, Alexa decided they should just cleanse the whole hotel,” I recount what Josh told me.

_I miss you, Jish._

_I miss you, too, Babyboy._

_Josh?_

_Hey, love. Are you guys still on the road?_

_Hey! Yeah, we aren’t stopping. We drive in shifts. Ryan’s driving at the moment. I’ll probably take over soon. Does this mean that you’re close?_

_I assume so. Are you in the mountains yet?_

_Yeah. We haven’t been for too long, tough, so it’s still quite a drive. Eight more hours. Will we be able to get in before breakfast?_

_You should be able to. I think they have a 24-hour desk clerk here. Are you okay after your vision, baby?_

_Sort of. I tore into the insides of my cheeks with my teeth, but I should be fine. Mostly, I just really scared Ryan._

_Is he okay, though? Like, will the two of you be safe?_

_I believe so. We’ll see you soon, pretty boy._

_Ty…_

I feel the nervousness from his side.

_Yeah?_

Silence.

_Jishwa? Are you okay?_

_Um, yeah. Sorry. Nevermind. You guys travel safely, okay? I’m headed to bed. It’s been an intense day. We’re all so excited to see you._

_I’m excited to see all of you, too. Sweet dreams, baby._

_I love you, Ty._

_I love you, too, Jish._

_Josh?_

Thinking it’s Ty again, I respond with a _Hey, baby._

_Jeeze. I knew I did a number on you this morning, but I didn’t know we’re on pet names now._

I sit up, fully awake.

_I see I have your attention. I was hoping we could talk a little? I’m outside by the topiary. Unless you were enjoying that particular nightmare._

_Um, no?_ I say, not really recalling having one. _I’ll meet you soon. Just let me put some clothes on._

_Thanks, man. The coffee machine is still functional, if you wanted to grab some on the way out._

_Definitely,_ I respond, dressing quietly.

I let myself out, taking extra care not to wake Brian, who’s a light sleeper. Out in the hall, I hear sounds drifting up from the lounge downstairs. Every night seems to be a party for these people. I envy them their normalcy.

I hit the elevator button and wait for it to come up. I feel more than a little guilty about not telling Tyler what happened between me and Brendon earlier when I had the chance. He would’ve understood. He loves me and he knows how I get around people in pain.

As I torture myself with this, the elevator doors open and out wafts the overpowering scent of smoke, perfume, alcohol and cologne. I step inside and into the past. They materialize between one blink and the next. They all turn to smile at me before stepping through the doors and heading down the hall. I watch as they pause outside our room, quietly discussing something. Then the tall woman in the fur reaches out and knocks on the door. I step through the elevator doors after them without realizing.

Enter Brian, answering the door as if in a trance. The woman holds out her hand to him and he takes it. He gets a drink stuffed into his hand and he takes a drag of the one guy’s cigar and back they come towards the elevator.

“Josh?” Brian says.

“Brian, you have to wake up. Please,” I whisper to him.

“Your friend isn’t asleep, Mr. Dun,” Cigar Man says. “We’re simply showing him a good time.”

“But you all die. Every night, you die. He can’t be caught up in that,” I say.

“No one says he has to be. He can come and enjoy the party and then leave whenever he likes,” the man retaliates.

“Yeah, Josh. And people call me uptight,” Brian says and takes a swig of his drink.

“Honestly, Brian? You want to fall off the wagon for a couple of ghosts? Really?”

“GHOSTS, Josh. Not real people – not real booze. God, get with the program, Dun.”  

“Is there a problem?” a voice sounds up from the lobby as the elevator doors open. “You can all kindly fuck off now.”

The scene dissolves. Brighter electric light streams in from outside the elevator and in comes Brendon. He takes Brian’s face in his hands and shuts his own eyes. A minute later, Brian’s eyes fly open and he gasps, stumbling backwards and away from Brendon.

“Welcome to the land of the living,” says Brendon. “Our parties might not be as swingin’, but at least we have a larger survival rate. Would you like a real drink or cigarette or shall I call for someone to escort you back to your room?”

Brian looks from Brendon to me and his face goes chalky. Then he promptly turns to his right and vomits all over the elevator floor.

“Charming,” pipes up Brendon.

He turns to call for one of the cleaners and I decide to call Alex. The sleepy guy promises to come pick up his dazed and confused significant other just as soon as he can find pants and asks that I please stay with Brian until he gets there.

“You okay?” I ask, assessing Brian physically.

“Josh, I need you to take a sample of my vomit,” is his response.

“What? Why?” I ask, looking disdainfully at the mess at our feet.

“Because I tasted vodka,” he says, eyes wide.

I frown.

“I’m drunk,” he breathes.


	5. Log 5

_“Hello, internet. This is Josh.”_

_~ points to Josh ~_

_“And this is Tyler.”_

_~ points to Tyler ~_

_“We are so excited to be doing this update together again.” ~ Tyler_

_“And, damn, is it a good one.” ~ Josh_

_“Apparently, the spirits trapped in this hotel are manifesting themselves in a big way. They got Brian drunk off ghost booze and gave him a pretty non-ghostly hangover. He’s recovering in a big way today. Alex is tending to him.” ~ Tyler_

_“We’re giving him the day off. It was pretty damn terrifying. I lived through this encounter with him and it really shook me. Even more so when Tyler told me about his newest vision.” ~ Josh_

_“This hotel is dangerous. Murderously dangerous. We may have gotten ourselves in over our heads this time. Alexa insists that we continue, though. She says she has a feeling that we just need one more variable to fall into place and then we can crack this. We’re brainstorming over lunch.” ~ Tyler_

_“So, stay street.” ~ Josh_

_“Stay strong.” ~ Tyler_

_Together: “Live on.”_

Everything is weird. Everything. I felt it the moment Ryan and I got here – which was two weeks ago. He’s still here, by the way. Ryan, I mean. Apparently, he and Brendon know each other. They were in a band together a while back.

Anyway, Lynn and Alexa are always off on their own. Alexa is a woman possessed – not literally. This case is driving her insane. She doesn’t understand why these spirits are choosing to manifest themselves through Josh and not through her. She argues that she’s the medium, not Josh. She should be the one they use as their portal onto our plane. I tried helping by suggesting that maybe they aren’t using her because she can command and control them, but she told me to shut up about things of which I know nothing and Lynn then promptly kicked me out of the room.

Brian is really sick. He’s a recovering alcoholic and the weird ghost booze he got into his system the other night not only made him fall off the wagon, it brought with it strange withdrawal symptoms. According to Josh, all the signs that Brian is drinking again are there. The irritability, the broodiness, the aspirin-chewing, even the bloodshot eyes. Alex is with him 24/7, though, and swears high and low that Brian hasn’t had a drink since ‘the night’.

Speaking of Josh, he’s hiding something from me. Something big. I always know when he’s lying to me and it seems like all he does is lie lately. He and Brendon and Ryan spend a lot of time together doing God-knows-what. I’m never expressly invited. Josh says that if I just came with him, Brendon wouldn’t protest to having me there. Ryan and I haven’t spoken since he laid eyes on Brendon.

Needless to say, this has left me with a lot of time to roam around the hotel. I’ve seen so many things that don’t add up. My favorite so far has been the topiary. The hedge animals move. They come for you whenever you aren’t looking directly at the them. I sat listening to music the other day amongst them when I noticed movement in my periphery. Of course, I turn my head to see, but there’s nothing but the hedge-bunny looking at me in completely the opposite direction it was before. Its eyes were also narrowed, scrutinizing me. Of course, this jars me and I rapidly blink my eyes to rid them of what I expect to be an optical illusion. However, by the time I look at the bunny again, it has closed the gap between us considerably and it looks ready for another hop, its face a murderous mask. At this, I jumped up like a fire had been lit beneath me and almost ran inside. At the door, I find Meredith Urie giving me a sombre, knowing look before shutting the door behind me.

I turn on her, opening my mouth to speak, but she shakes her head at me, pushes past me and runs away.

_What the fuck?_

_You okay?_

It’s Josh, but he sounds slightly fuzzy, like he’s been drinking. I didn’t know Josh drinks now. He has never had a drop of alcohol since we’ve been together. I always assumed that meant that he doesn’t drink at all.

_Fine. Where are you?_

_In the Lounge. You wanna join us?_

_Are you drunk, Josh?_

_Maybe a little. Booze is cheaper during the day. Just blowing off some steam. Come have fun with us._

_I don’t drink. I thought you didn’t, either. Not that I know what you do when I’m not around. Anything else you’d like to enlighten me of, dear?_

_I sense some animosity. What exactly is your problem?_

_Nothing at all. I don’t know what you mean._

_Sarcasm. Great. You do you, Ty. I’ll be here where everyone is far less up-tight. Cool?_

I don’t answer him. I’m tired of being lied to and manipulated. If he wants to get drunk with his new buddy and this buddy’s – I’m pretty sure – fuck-buddy, then that’s his thing. I actually want to solve the case we came here to work on and help the sonofabitch Josh now prefers to hang with. Am I being bitter? Probably. Do I care? Not one bit.

I decide to do some investigating of my own. Heading in the same direction as Meredith, I opt for the stairs instead of the elevator, not wanting to get caught up in that can of worms. As I move through the hotel, I wonder what being here must be like for people with impersonal gifts like Alexa and Josh. How much the hotel must wear on them. I always feel so crap for not being able to lift Josh’s burden the way he lifts mine when things get tough during cleansings. Now, however, I just feel tired. I feel like Josh and I need to have a talk, but I bet he’d get defensive if I asked. I don’t want to lose him, though. No matter what, the one thing I’m always sure of is that I want to spend the rest of my life with Josh.

I step up to the door of room 217. I don’t know if I imagine it, but I swear I feel a presence behind the door. I find myself drawn closer. My hand is the first thing to press up against the wood panelling of the door. It’s like it’s vibrating ever so slightly at my touch. Then I press my ear up against it.

For a while, there’s nothing but silence. Then, muffled shouting and glass smashing, terrified screams and a dull smack. At the thick crack of skin on skin, I jerk back from the door.

“ _Tilda, let them handle it. They’re professionals_ ,” I hear a voice say, barely above a whisper.

“ _But it’s my fault, Red. Besides, they’re gonna get rid of me along with all the others, no matter what. I might as well finish what I started_ ,” a different voice replies.

“ _But_ you _didn’t start anything. This is so much bigger than you. This has been a thing long before we showed up here. You are just a victim. Besides, it’s kind of morbid wanting to help them git rid of you. I thought I was the emo twin_ ,” the first voice counters.

I creep towards the voices, praying that the wooden floor doesn’t creak. Peeking around the corner, I see Meredith sitting across from a girl that looks almost exactly like her. Apart from a few minuscule differences, they could be twins.

_Matilda._

“I’d rather move on, Red. Being trapped in here with all this pain and anguish is torture. I’ll miss you – of course I will – but I’m not happy and I’ll never be happy here. I’m sorry,” Matilda says and takes her sister’s hand.

Meredith seems to struggle with something for a moment. The look she gives Matilda is super unsure, but then she appears to throw caution to the wind.

“I can’t speak at all without you,” she blurts.

Matilda frowns deeply.

“I can’t even open my mouth. It’s like my lips are magnets, drawn together. I get trapped inside my head. No part of my gift works without you. Mom and Dad don’t know. I think Dad suspects, but he hasn’t said anything. He just beats himself up about it. You can’t leave, Tilda. Please…” tears spill down Meredith’s face.

“Red…”

“Please, Tilda? Please, stay?”

I move my foot, which is falling asleep, and accidentally kick the skirting. Both girls’ heads snap up and Matilda gasps and pops out of existence.

Feeling like I just intruded on something super personal – which I guess I did – I make myself scarce. Meredith, however, has other ideas. She moves lightning fast to cut me off. Parking herself in front of me in the hall, she pulls out her phone and starts typing frantically.

“You can’t tell anyone,” the message in her notes app reads.

“I have to, Meredith. You heard your sister. She’s miserable. Besides, these ghosts are making Brian and Josh and Alexa sick. They’re making your dad sick. Don’t you want to help them?” I ask, pleadingly.

Typing.

“Yes, but what I said to Tilda is true. I am stuck inside myself without her. I can’t live with my parents forever. I have no one to speak for me. Also, she’s my sister, Tyler. My twin. How would you feel if someone took someone that close to you away? How would you feel if you lost Josh?”

This hits home, obviously, and all the fight goes out of me.

“I understand. What do you suggest we do, then?” I ask.

She wastes no time in typing the next reply.

“Leave.”

“That’s not an option.”

“Then leave me alone,” she counters. “Give me a day and then you can do your stupid cleanse.”

“Meredith…”

But she already passed me and disappeared back around the corner.

 

Somewhere in the distant recesses of my increasingly drunken mind, I register Tyler’s panic. He decided to be all judge-y, though, so he can come to me if he needs help. I am in too good a mood for him to ruin.

“But do you remember when we played Madison?” Brendon asks Ryan, tears streaming down his face from laughter.

“Wasn’t that the one where just none of us were sober?” Ryan reminisces.

“Yes! At some point, Spencer literally passed out on his drums. I remember stumbling over there and patting his head until he woke up. I think you asked the crowd to help cheer Spencer on. What the fuck was that show?” Brendon says and takes a swig of his vodka and lime with Ryan lying on his shoulder.

“Man, I wish I could do that. Just leave the university and travel the world to play music. Tyler and I, we’re actually pretty good. Plus, I love him, so…” Tyler’s panic registers again.

Then, “Brendon!”

The doors burst open and in dashes Tyler, almost crashing into our table.

“Brendon, you have to help me find Meredith. Please. She’s going to do something really stupid,” he says in a rush and then draws in a desperate breath.

This has an immediate sobering effect on Brendon.

“What happened?” Brendon asks.

Tyler recounts what he saw and his conversation with the girl.

“Fuck,” Brendon says and runs his hand through his hair.

“We need to find her. Brendon, I’m sorry. If it was something I said, I am so, SO sorry. I never meant to hurt her. Please, believe me,” Tyler begs, his eyes welling up with tears.

I reach over and take his hand. He pulls it away and I frown.

“No, no. It wasn’t you. No, Red is going through so much and Tilda was the only one she ever felt any semblance to normal around. This is my fault.  Again. Not that Sarah has necessarily been all that supportive. I think Red’s been wearing her sister’s clothes…” Brendon notices he’s lost us and sighs. “Context.”

“That’d help, yeah,” Ryan says.

“Meredith was born Frederick. She was never our son, though. She always referred to herself as Matilda’s sister. She was eight when she asked Tilda to call her Red instead of Fred. When she turned fourteen, she came out to all of us as Meredith and begged us to understand. Sarah and I didn’t at first, but she came out to us holding Tilda’s hand. Tilda loved Red no matter what. She did Red’s make-up and shared her clothes with Red and was literally the best sister Red could’ve asked for. Of course, Sarah and I got better over time, but we’re still learning. Then Tilda dies and Red feels all alone. Her mother and I can’t even present a united front. I’ve just been so focused on getting my family back together that I haven’t been giving Meredith the attention she needs. I fucked up. Again. Oh, God,” Brendon breathes the last part.  

“Well, if you want to prevent any further fuck ups, maybe we should go find your daughter before she joins her sister,” Tyler huffs and stalks back out of the Lounge.

I get up and follow him out. Just beyond the doors, I finally manage to grab his hand and swing him around to face me.

“What the hell is your problem? That was so harsh,” I say.

“Harsh? How about you tell me what it is about Brendon Urie that you seem to find so damn endearing, Josh, because it sure as hell is not that he’s a good person. He’s a damn mess. Men like him shouldn’t have families. If I were his wife, I would’ve divorced him years ago. All that asshole cares about is booze and his next lay. I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason anyone likes him is because he wants to be liked – and I know you know what I mean,” Tyler spits, yanking free.

“Maybe I just have more sympathy for people than you do – and _I_ know _you_ know what _I_ mean,” I hit back.

“That’s not fair,” he says, his face falling. “I care about you, Jish. So much it hurts to be without you. Now I feel like being with me is the last thing you want. Is it the hotel? We were apart for only four days. Did something happen? Please, tell me I’m imagining this.”

His head drops into his hands.

I ache just to tell him, but if he looks this broken now, how bad won’t it be once he knows? I don’t know what to do. I want to comfort him. He’s on the verge of losing himself again and I can’t be responsible for that.

_God, help me, please?_

“Tyler…”

His head snaps up, desperate for some kind of salvation.

“Tyler, I screwed up. Please, you have to believe that I’d never do this to you. Never. I love you so much. Please…” I beg, my voice hitching.

I see the spark leave his eyes, but I can’t stop now I’ve started.

“He filled my head. I-I forgot you. He overpowered me entirely. I’m so sorry, Ty. I love you so much, too. I would never do anything to hurt you, I swear. I would s-sooner die…”

He runs. I hear the doors to the topiary open and a minute later the breeze comes in. My entire body wracks with sobs. I want to run after him, but, when I let myself hear him, I know I’m the last person he wants to see. So, I stand there and cry. I can’t even manage to go to my room.

It feels like forever before Brendon puts his hand on my shoulder. I shrug him off and shove him out of my head.

“You STAY AWAY. Stay OUT of my head and DON’T talk to me. You ruined EVERYTHING!” I scream at him and push him hard in the chest.

“Josh, I…”

Ryan pushes through the Lounge doors and tries to step between us, but I aim my fist at him and he backs off.

“NO! You don’t get to talk to me. I don’t want to hear it. All you do is break everything and you don’t fix it. You feel sorry for yourself and drown it all out with booze and sex. Now, you’ve ruined someone else’s life, too. How are you not sick of yourself?” I say and push him again.

He just stands there and looks bewildered and uncomprehending. How the hell is he not understanding? Did I fucking stutter?

I swing. My fist connects with his jaw and he goes flying backwards. As he hits the ground, the thump of his body on the wood is drowned out by a piercing scream coming from the topiary.

 

I have no memory of coming out here. When I find myself, I’m sitting curled up inside the stone tube in the kids’ playground next to the topiary. I distantly register my very labored breathing, but what worries me more is the darkness I’m descending into. The portals of light at either end of the tube blink out of existence. It grows extremely cold around me and my body goes rigid. I don’t hear my breathing at all.

_It’s your fault, you know._

_You’re clingy and boring._

_You knew he was going to get sick of you eventually._

_What did you think was going to happen when he didn’t have you to breathe down his neck anymore?_

_He found someone better. Infinitely better._

_All you need to do is accept the fact that you’ll always be a disappointment._

_Pitiful._

_DIE!!!!!_

Then the ruby eyes dissolve as my lungs entirely give out. I’m afforded one last glance through the opening to my right and suddenly I’m spoilt for all the oxygen pouring into my mouth.

I scream.

 

Staring into the tube is a giant green eye. A leafy cat’s eye. One of the hedge lions. I furiously back away from it down the tube. Then I hear the sound of twigs snapping and branches creaking behind me. Turning my head around slowly, I see another cat’s eye peeking in at me.

I can’t help it.

I scream again.

My hyperventilation comes back, but my resolve is entirely shot. I feel myself getting light-headed immediately.

_I’m going to die in here._

“NO!”

It’s quiet for a minuscule infinity. No sound, no air, no life. Nothing. Then my entire existence lights up with a bright, violet light and my senses are slammed with input again. It’s so disorienting that I hold my breath for a bit. My racing heart causes me to inhale deeply before long, though.

“TYLER! Ty!” Josh calls, running towards the tube.

He skids to a halt outside and almost dives in after me.

“I’m okay,” I barely whisper.

Of course, he hears me.

“I thought I lost you. I thought I fucked up so bad and I wasn’t ever going to have the chance to apologize and make it right. Oh, God, I’m so, so, SO sorry. Please, believe me, baby. You HAVE to believe me. I would never do anything on purpose to hurt you,” he babbles, trying to get his arms around me.

I let him, but I make no move to do the same. When he finally leans back to look at me, I level with him.

“I’m sorry, Josh. I believe you – I do – but I need time. I just…give me a second to breathe. I’ve been through a lot. Okay?”

He nods once and moves backwards out of the tube.

Outside, I find Brendon standing amongst the hedge animals and the sight gives me so much anxiety that I almost run to get him out of there.

“How did you move the lions?” I ask Josh.

“We tapped into their spirit energy and transmuted them. They’re stunned at the moment, but it’s not permanent,” he explains.

“Thanks for saving me, Jish,” I say and give him a small smile.

He smiles back.  

 

She lost so much blood. We found her in the bathtub of room 217. Being in there messed with my head so much. I felt her trapped in there – the lady I saw with Brendon. She wasn’t even fully a ghost: a death echo doomed to relive her death forever.

Meredith was lifted out of there by her father and carried to the small staff infirmary of the hotel. She needed a blood transfusion and the only available candidate was her mother. Sarah agreed without hesitation and they were both prepped as soon as Red was stitched up. She’s going to have such terrible scars. They stand out ropey and angry amongst the thin only slightly discolored lines left from previous attempts at coping. They reminded me of the scars I’ve seen on Tyler’s ribs.

The bath was scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and eventually Brendon came in and told the maid to stop. The bath has always been the terrible rust color it is now. I have a feeling it’s been that way since the room’s first victim.

I also noticed something I haven’t shared with anyone. In the corner of every room Red was in was a passably person-shaped shadow unaccounted for by the number of bodies. It moved with us. At some point, it was right next to Red by the operating table, holding her hand. I didn’t try to communicate with it or even feel around for it too much. I knew it wasn’t malignant, so I let it be. Besides, Brendon seemed comforted by its presence.

At the moment, however, our initial concern for Red has taken a backseat. Brian has locked himself in the boiler room. He reckons it’s probably safer that way. I don’t know how we’re getting him out, since the door is never supposed to be closed and now has to be broken open. We’ll have to call in experts or get a blowtorch somehow.

Alex is in our room, nursing a black eye – given to him by Brian. Tyler is with him. He’s not talking about anything except how urgently we need to help Brian. He just wants Brian to be safe. He reasons we can always keep Brian in the infirmary, but Brendon and Sarah don’t want him near their daughter. I saw Brian looming over Alex when I went to our room earlier and I wouldn’t want him near my loved ones, either.

To be honest, I’m beginning to think Red was right and that we should just leave. Of course, I’d feel sorry for the Uries, but none of us every agreed to die for a cleanse. This hotel is absolutely toxic.

That’s probably also why I am currently outside room 217 – for about the tenth time, I remember now – and why I hear a party downstairs in the dark, empty Lounge. I feel like the key to this cleanse lies with me. I’m what the hotel really wants, not Brian or Alexa or Brendon. It needs to me keep on living, so I should also be the one that can kill it.

Inside 217, I hear water running. Steam is billowing out of the bathroom. If I could just help her move on, maybe that’ll fix this. Maybe if I can help the hotel move on one spiritually staining event at a time, eventually the whole building will have been cleansed and everyone can stop getting hurt. I am strong and I might not have complete control just yet, but if I take small steps it might work. I have hope.

Before I can work myself up into going into the bathroom, I hear her gargled breathing and the sloshing sound of water spilling onto tile. I move in slowly. She seems to be struggling at nothing, her murderer invisible since he did not die here. I close my eyes and cover my ears like a little kid until I feel the scene has ended. When I open them, it’s to something far more disturbing.

Her entire body is blue and wrinkled and saggy. Her eyes are glassy, sunken orbs and her lips puffy and bruised-looking. I walk over to pull her out of the water, hoping that maybe I can go bury her outside or something, but that is mistake in itself. Her head snaps up and our eyes meet and then she’s lifting herself out of the bath. I step back to give her space, but she has other ideas. Her hands reach out to me, fingers making claws as if she wants to grab me. So, I back away. Eventually, I have myself cornered with nowhere to go. She’s fast, too, and closes the gap between us easily.

“Please. I want to help you,” I say to her.

She presses herself up against me and wraps her hands around my neck.

“Stop. Please,” I heave, but almost no sound comes out.

Her fingers are like iron bands around my throat, crushing my windpipe to nothingness. I try and push her off me, but to no avail. This is how I die.

 _Whenever the hotel gets too much for you, Josh, just close your eyes and tell whatever it is to go away. Force it away. You’re strong enough,_ a girl’s voice sounds in my head. _Just wish it away._

 _GO AWAY!_ I yell.

Then the pressure on my throat is gone. I open my eyes to find the bathroom entirely empty, save for small puddles of water here and there from where the woman had made her way towards me.

 _Thank you,_ I think to whoever helped me.

 _No problem, Josh. You helped save my sister. Just returning the favor,_ the voice responds.

_Matilda?_

_The one and the same. Don’t tell my dad I spoke to you, please? He beats himself up enough as it is. We might be the most dysfunctional family in existence, but we all love and care for each other deep down._

_Your dad needs reminding of that. He doesn’t treat your mom very well._

_She wasn’t exactly there for him, either. After he hurt us the one time, she kind of lost all hope for him. So, when he went off the rails again, she just retreated into herself and kept us away from him. He just needs her support. Instead, she resents him._

Leaning against the bath, slowly materializing, is a girl. Her hair is the same as that of her sister’s, except she has a bright purple streak down the ride side of her hair, right next to her bangs. They also have obvious differences in style. Matilda’s wearing a cute, black dress that cuts in at the waist with lace-up boots and frilly socks that spill out over the top and a black ribbon in her hair, tied around just behind her bangs into a bow.

On top of all of this, she and Red are almost identical. The only difference I can see is a bit more softness to Tilda’s features that Red doesn’t have. However, the lack of this softness does not make Red appear at all masculine. Just a little harder, tougher. Tilda, in all honesty, looks super dainty and breakable.

_I can hear you, you know. I assure you, I am not. It’s not my fault Red got my dad’s jaw. She has the more gorgeous cheekbones, though. Don’t tell her this, but I envy my sister so much._

_She misses you. She’s so unhappy without you._

_I know. I wish I could just fix this, but I don’t know how. If I leave, she’ll never talk again. Red would say she doesn’t mind that so much because of her voice, but she’s sixteen and that’ll right itself as long as she keeps taking her pills. I don’t want to leave her. I just can’t stay._

_Would you come with me to my friends? Lynn might know something that can help you. She’s an expert in these kinds of things. Maybe we can send you somewhere while the cleanse happens and then bring you back when it’s over and you and Red can still be together._

Tilda looks mildly perturbed by this. She nods slightly, though.

_Maybe._

_We can go now, if you want. I don’t think they’re busy._

_No. Soon, though, okay? Just give me some time. I’ll come to you. You have a pleasant mind, Josh. I feel safe and at ease. I don’t know how that boyfriend of yours doesn’t just live here._

_Um, thanks,_ I say, feeling my cheeks warm a little.

_Stay alive, Jish._

And then she’s gone.  


	6. Log 6

_Josh: (stares blankly into the camera for a full twenty seconds)_

_Alex: (leaves the room within camera range)_

_Josh: (turns to look) (turns back to camera)_

_Josh: …_

_Josh: …_

_Josh: …_

_Josh: …_

_Josh: “I…um…tonight’s the night, I guess.”_

I leave the room with the camera running, until I find Alex standing near the elevator. He looks super disgruntled and like he’d much rather sit tonight out.

Brian hasn’t left the boiler room in four days. We managed to break open an old dumb-waiter shaft to get him food, but it isn’t nearly big enough for him to escape through. Alex’s black eye has faded to a swollen, sickly green, but everything about him looks lackluster. He hasn’t been doing his hair and he’s been sleeping in his clothes. I don’t think he’s changed pants since that night.

I put my hand on his shoulder comfortingly and hand him the camera. He takes it and gives me the saddest excuse for a smile I have ever seen.

“I guess tonight’s gonna get weird, huh?” Alex mutters in my direction.

“As it always does. We’ll get through it, though. Brian will be okay,” I say and reach out for his hand.

He lets me take it and looks kind of grateful for the comfort.

“Josh, I love him,” he manages before a few shuddered breaths. “I love him so much. He really wasn’t himself when he hit me. I don’t know how he was with you or if he ever got violent, but he has not once since we started dating five years ago lifted a finger at me. This hotel is making him so sick. I don’t think even leaving is going to fix him. We have to cleanse this place. You guys – you and Tyler and Alexa and even Brendon and Meredith – you have to beat these ghosts. Please? Promise me you’ll save Brian?”

I feel the ferocity of his request coming off him in waves. I barely manage a nod, but that seems to be enough.

Downstairs in the foyer, Tyler is waiting and he relieves me of Alex’s hand as he takes Alex’s other one and leads both of us into the infirmary. Everyone – sans Brian, of course – is gathered around the metal island that serves as a bed-slash-operating table. Alexa reaches for Alex and he trudges over to her, camera held aloft, and lets her hug him, pointing the camera under her arm at Lynn who proceeds to stick out her tongue at it.

 _Where’s Ryan?_ I ask Brendon.

_He left earlier. Went back to Ohio. I told him it wasn’t safe and that I’d rather he was as far away from this as possible._

“This plan is everything but simple. It’s dangerous, difficult, uncertain and possibly fatal. We need to draw all the spirits and all of the non-corporeal spiritual energy in this hotel to one point and then trap it. It took some heavy spell work on Lynn’s part to get the right container, but we have what we need.

“The big question is what we do about Red. There are one of two options,” Alexa says, meeting the girl’s focused gaze across the table. Brendon moves to stand closer to his daughter. “The first is that you give up your gift entirely and then we draw it out of you and trap it with the ghosts. You should regain your speech, but you’ll be entirely human. The second – and this is much trickier – is that we merge your sister’s spirit with yours. In essence, make you two what you were supposed to be at birth – one person. Matilda will cease to exist as a spiritual entity entirely, but you will have both your power and hers. You will then also regain your speech and be gifted. It could be your way of holding onto her.

“Now, this is your decision entirely. Don’t feel pressured, either way. We’ll respect whatever you decide.”

I brush up against her consciousness and Red lets me in gladly.

_I don’t know what to do, Josh. I want to keep Tilda with me in whatever way I can, but I can’t force her to give herself up for me like that._

_Hey, I know it feels like the world is ending, but I’m pretty sure if you spoke to Matilda about this, you’d be surprised at how cavalier she’ll be._

_He’s right, you know,_ Matilda pipes up. _Listen to me, big sis. I told you before: the only difference between life and dying is one is trying and that’s all you have to do. So, try to love me and let me save you, okay?_

“Were you here a minute ago?” Lynn asks, staring at the spot next to Red where Matilda has appeared.

“Um, no. Sorry. Pleasure to meet all of you. My name is Matilda Urie,” she says and waves, giving the room a bright smile.

“I…um…wait, you’re a ghost, right?” Alexa says intelligently.

“Yup. Not vindictive, promise. Just here to help,” she says and takes Red’s hand.

“Okay…?”

“By the way, hi, Daddy,” Matilda says and momentarily steps around Red to hug her father. “Just so you know, I do not blame you in the slightest. This was my own stupidity. You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty over. So, please, stop. Red needs you so much, because Mom is really terrible and literally still mixes up Red’s pronouns every single time she walks in on Red in the bathroom. It’s ridiculous. Mom literally told Red the other day that it would be so much easier if she had just ‘stayed a boy’, because then she wouldn’t be saddled with resizing all of my clothes to fit Red. You were always so much better. And I’m babbling. Sorry.”

Everyone in the room has their eyes fixed on Matilda’s blushing, _ghost_ face as she stares down at her shoes. Its Alexa, as usual, who finds her voice first.

“So, uh, Matilda, would you be cool with merging with Meredith?”

Her head snaps up and she meets Alexa’s gaze unwaveringly.

“Absolutely.”

“Meredith?”

Red swallows and says, in a husky, breathy voice, “If Tilda’s cool with it, then so am I.”

“Great. So, we have our plan. Now–”

“Um, sorry…to interrupt. I may be able to make your plan a whole lot easier,” Matilda says.

“I’m all ears, kid,” Alexa says, crossing her arms.

“The ghosts in this hotel mostly live by one another. In other words, spirits trapped here from one occurrence don’t really know that spirits trapped here from another occurrence exist. Because I knew about all of them before I died – and them having used me to materialize once before doesn’t hurt the cause, either – I can move through their separate planes of existence. I can trick them into following me to wherever you need them to be,” Tilda explains.

“Stupendous!” Alexa exclaims, so loudly that Alex jumps about a foot in the air and freaks out Tyler so much that he has to get his breathing back under control.

I send some soothing vibes Tyler’s way. He looks up at me with a small smile.

Alexa beckons Matilda over and she, Tilda and Lynn pour over hotel blueprints, trying to figure out where the best spot would be. The rest of us stand around awkwardly, except for Alex, who does his cameraman thing.

 _Do you really think this will work?_ Brendon asks.

 _It has in the past. This is far from our first rodeo, dude,_ I answer a little smugly.

_I meant Matilda and Meredith merging. Have your ever done that before?_

_Uuuuuhhhh, no. Sorry. Lynn knows what she’s doing, though. She could be a full-blown witch if she wasn’t so anti-Satanism. She doesn’t believe in blood-magic. Wiccans, the hippies of the magic world._

He chuckles and I grin.

“Okay, guys. We’ve decided the topiary would be b–”

“Oh, shut up, Alexa. You always were a bossy bitch.”

Standing in the doorway to the infirmary is Brian, brandishing a croquet mallet. He reeks of booze and sweat and other bodily excretions. His hair is a mess and his left hand looks broken in at least two places and almost all his fingernails are missing. His t-shirt is hanging off him in tatters and his jeans aren’t doing much better.

“Brian? Baby? Are you okay? How did you get out?” Alex asks from across the room.

“Get that _fucking_ camera out of my face, Alex, or, so help me, you’re first,” Brian warns, pointing the mallet threateningly at Alex.  

“Brian,” Tyler interjects. “You know this isn’t you, man. Not even close. It’s the hotel. Just put the mallet down and let us help. We’re your friends. We can make this better.”

Brian fixes his stare on Tyler.

“I am so fucking sick of your ‘rationality’. All of us – every, single one – knows how fucked up you are inside. We hear you talk in your sleep. We’ve all seen how you get when you have a panic attack. I’ve even seen the pathetic scars on your ribs. Who the _fuck_ do you think you are, trying to help anyone? You can’t even help yourself.

“You know what, Josh?” he continues, turning on me. “I don’t even blame you for fucking Brendon. I don’t. Anything has got to be better than this emo bullshit.”

The only thing that registers is Tyler’s face. He looks like he just got punched in the gut. Then the room starts spinning – or maybe it’s just my head. No, it’s Tyler’s head. Definitely Tyler’s. I see him, Blurryface. The one who haunts Tyler’s head. I have personally had a word or two with him. Right now, though, he needs to fuck off.

_Tyler? It’s a lie. I swear to you it’s a lie. I did not fuck Brendon. I’ll show you exactly what happened if you want. I did not sleep with him. It’s just whatever’s wrong with Brian. It’s trying to cause discord. I promise I have never slept with anyone but you since we have been together._

Nothing’s working. Tyler’s gone. He’s sitting on the floor in a heap, Alex’s camera trained on him.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” a hollow voice says. I realize it’s mine.

“Don’t even bother to find a bathroom. Pretty soon, you’ll be dead and have no gag reflex, anyway,” Brian says conversationally.

“Okay, first of all, you NEED to shut up,” Matilda says and she gives him a pretty hectic psychic push. He lands on his back in the small hall leading off the infirmary. “Second of all, get a grip. The one and only way the hotel can get any kind of grip on you whatsoever, is if you’re weak willed enough to let it.”

But Brian has found his feet. He charges down on Matilda and swings, but the mallet passes right through her.

“Ha, nice try. I’m already dead. Sorry,” she says as she advances on him, kind of gleefully, and shoves him again.

He dodges and slips past her. she turns to follow him, but Red cuts her off.

“Tilda, go do what Alexa needs. We’ll take care of him.”

Matilda nods and disappears.

Brendon steps in to take her place and I join him, forming a barricade between Brian and the others. Alexa joins us and suddenly her voice is weird again with power.

“I command the spirits taking hold of this man to let go of him immediately. He is not your vessel. He is not even of supernatural disposition. He is a weak soul and nothing more. Leave him be and fight your own battles.”

“Do you ever shut up?” Brian asks and swings his mallet at me, hitting me squarely in the ribs.

I go down, my vision spotty with pain. A shadow looms over me, but it’s just Brendon intervening. He shoves Brian aside and pins him to the wall.

“Now would be a good time to run, ladies and gents,” Brendon says.

I’m hoisted to my feet and almost bite clean through my tongue to keep from screaming in pain. Red guides me down the hall and into the foyer. There she tells me to stay put and runs back to her dad.

“Red, it’s not safe!” I croak after her.

She swats away my concern and disappears down the hall.

The moment I’m alone, I realize that I’m, well, alone and begin to panic. Where are the others? Where’s Tyler? Is he okay? I didn’t see him leave the infirmary. Is he still stu–

Then Red reappears – and Brendon, Brian and Tyler. She’s holding her dad’s hand while he has Brian in a psychic hold a few inches above the ground. Her other hand is clasped around Tyler’s shoulder, guiding him. The moment he sees me, he runs towards me.

“Are you okay?” he asks, falling to his knees next to my collapsed body.

“Not really. I need to be, though. I need bandages. Strong ones. Are there any in the infirmary?” I ask.

“We finished it all on Red. I feel like we can afford to replace a few pillowcases, though. Would cloth work?” he asks, helping me to my feet.

“Definitely.”

“Brendon, you good?” Ty asks him.

“Not really. Red isn’t gonna hold much longer, either. Run, okay? Help Josh. We need him.”

Tyler nods and the two of us move to the rooms as fast as we can.

“Ty, I’m so sorry. Please, believe me? I love you, Babyboy,” I say between pants.

“Sshhh. Don’t talk. Just focus on the pain, okay? Displace it. Give some to me. You have to get better,” he says as we reach the elevator.

“No. We can’t take the elevator. I can’t afford to be taken down by ghosts right now. We have to take the stairs.”

The climb is about the most excruciating thing I’ve ever had to live through. Every single time I put down my left leg – the ribs in my left side are broken – the pain makes me want to pass out. I am also becoming increasingly short of breath. This has me considering that maybe my lung is punctured.

_Well, shit._

“We need to stop,” I say as we reach the second floor.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Tyler asks, panicked.

“Three of my ribs are broken and the middle one punctured my lung. Tyler, listen to me,” I say, as he starts to fret. “I can fix this. I just need you to go find me something I can bind my ribs with, okay?”

“Bandages. Got it,” he says and dashes down the hall.

I sink to the ground and sit on the top step. Closing my eyes, I try to get my breathing as under control as possible. I focus my mind on those three ribs. The first only has a bit chipped away. I put the chipped bit back in place in my head. When it actually mends itself, I let out a moan. Before my mind has a chance to get foggy from the pain, I focus on the last rib. This one broke length-ways down the middle and then the crack veered off to the top and that loose chunk is pressing against something. I focus on putting it back in its place, too. This is far less painful and brings a lot of relief. Finally, I focus on the rib in my lung. It’s broken clean off and bent inwards. I stuff my fist in my mouth and pull the chunk of bone free. The scream that’s ripped out of me is only slightly dampened by my hand. My eyes stream with pain and my breathing is even shallower. In my head, I envision the hole in my lung pulling itself shut into a small, puckered contusion and sticking together. I imagine blood rushing to the hole and clotting there, acting like glue. I feel this happening in a pretty detached way. The pain is probably so bad at this point that my mind can’t even register it anymore. I reposition the loose chunk of bone into it’s original place and then let myself take deeper breaths.

As the oxygen rushes back into my blood and my brain and I can think more clearly, I open my eyes and find I’m completely alone in the hall. Where’s Tyler?

_Ty?_

_JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!_

I’m on my feet in a heartbeat and rushing to where I can feel Tyler. I almost trip all over myself when I stop in front of room 217. Oh, God, please don’t let him be dying in there.

The door opens way too easily, but I barely notice as I rush into the bathroom. There, in the corner I’d been trapped in the last time I was here, is Tyler – being strangled by _her_. The space between us disappears and I pull her off him.

“Tyler, run!”

He obeys.

Then the door slams shut behind him.

 

“JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!” I scream at the closed door. No amount of slamming against or kicking at the door makes it budge.

_What have I done?_

THUNK.

“Where are you all hiding? Come out and take your damn medicine!”

Brian!

THUNK.

“ALEXA, you know-it-all bitch! I’ll show you. COME HERE AND TAKE YOUR FUCKING MEDICINE!”

He’s coming closer and closer and I have nowhere to hide.

“Brian! Let us help you. Let ME help. Please, you’re scaring us,” Josh’s voice pipes up from behind the door.

“I’ll fucking kill you, Dun. You bastard! Come out and I’ll show you scary!”

There’s a scraping behind the door Josh spoke through.

A scream. Josh screaming, pleading, whimpering.

“COME TAKE YOUR FUCKING MEDICINE!”

THUNK.

Making probably the stupidest decision of my whole life, I figure the only way to go here is to disarm and knock out Brian. I can fight a little. Lynn taught us all. Man, how I wish Lynn were here.

As he rounds the corner, I grab at the mallet and manage to actually get it away from him. He comes after me, though. I swing it threateningly in his direction, but this does not faze him in the slightest. So, I pin his arms behind him and push his chest up against the door of room 217.

“Brian, you have to snap out of it. You HAVE to. Before you hurt someone. You almost killed Josh. Your little stunt with the mallet punctured his lung.”

“That’s okay. The zombitch in there will finish him off for me,” he says, pointing his nose at the door.

I have to resist the urge with great difficulty to take a swing at him with the damn mallet.

 _Tyler! You have to bring Brian to the topiary,_ Brendon sounds up in my head.

_I can’t. Josh is stuck in 217. I can’t get the door open. Could Matilda not get her to play ball or what?_

_She’s not a ghost. She’s a death echo. Same kind of energy as the hedge animals. Matilda can’t get to her. Tell him to close his eyes and tell her to go away. She will. They all do. You have to will them away._

“Josh! Josh, can you hear me?” I call.

“Yeah!” he says, but the sound is choked off.

“Brendon says to close your eyes and tell her to go away. Will her away and she’ll leave.”

“I’ve been trying that. Whatever Lynn and Alexa are doing, is messing with the reality of the hotel. She isn’t leaving.”

“Can you hold her off for a while longer? I need to take Brian to the topiary,” I ask and tighten my grip on Brian’s arms as he tries to wriggle free.

“I can try. Go. The faster you get there, the sooner she leaves.”

I shove Brian down the hall, keeping a tight hold on him and pressing the handle of the mallet to his throat.

“Just so you know, ‘Lynn and Alexa’ aren’t doing anything. Alexa is…in disposed. She shouldn’t have tried to help the ghost,” Brian says maliciously.

“What. Did you. Do?”

Now he decides to shut up, save for a sick smirk on his face.

Forgetting entirely about the topiary, I leave him and dash up the stairs, shrieking Alexa’s name to the high heavens. I run around each floor as I go up and up. I finally stop on our floor as I pass our rooms. Alexa and Lynn’s door is ajar. I walk in and the first thing that catches my eye the mirror. Reflected in it in bright red lettering is the word ‘REDRUM’. My eyes see the drip tracks where the substance (I refuse to acknowledge that it might be blood) ran down the wall. Finally, I turn around to face the word. ‘MURDER’. Beneath it, on the ground with a gaping hole where the left side of her skull and brain should be, is Alexa. The purple streak in her hair has turned back to white.   

“COME HERE AND TAKE YOUR FUCKING MEDICINE!”

THUNK.

_Did I leave the fucking mallet with him?_

“Tyler! I know you’re up here. Come out and fight me, you pussy!” Brian yells from just outside the door.

_I’m dead._

“You’re not. Not as long as I’m still here,” a familiar voice says next to me.

“Alexa?”

“You can’t leave the hotel, remember? I got him. Just be ready to grab him on my word,” she says. “You got this, Ty. Just…do me one favor? Don’t let Lynn see me like this. I want a closed casket wake.”

“I promise,” I say and hug her.

She’s so cold. I avoid looking at her body on the ground.

She rushes out the door and, for a moment, Brian is stunned.

“I…I killed you,” he says.

“In the hotel, moron,” Alexa says. “Tyler, NOW!”

I burst through the door and grab him. He drops the mallet in shock. Shoving him against the wall, I pull back and swing. He drops like a sack of potatoes.

“Nice punch,” Alexa says.

“Thanks. I didn’t actually think that would work.”

“It’s like Lynn always says. It’s all about faith.”

“That it is,” I say and throw Brian over my shoulder. “Listen, can you maybe go help Josh? He’s stuck in 217 with the lady that died there. She was trying to kill him when I left.”

“You got it. Don’t say anything to Lynn, okay? I wanna tell her myself.”

“Alright.”

We go our separate ways. I rush down the stairs to the topiary. As I reach the foyer, Josh comes rocketing past me and almost sends me toppling to the ground with Brian on top of me. I run to catch up.

Outside, everything seems to have gone to shit. The hedge animals are all after Brendon and Lynn, Alex, Red and Matilda are all trapped inside a psychic barrier Matilda put up in the playground by one of the stone sitting areas.

Josh gets to Brendon just as the one hedge lion, the male, sinks it’s branch canine into Brendon’s right calf. His scream is piercing and I get goosebumps. There’s a massive purple flash that stops the world again as Josh stuns the animals and gets Brendon free.

“Can you take care of that?” Josh asks, gesturing to his leg.

“Yeah. Go help the others,” Brendon says and Josh moves to help me with Brian.

Together, we head to the others. Matilda drops her barrier when she sees us coming.

“Where’s Alexa?” Lynn asks as soon as we’re within earshot.

“I thought she was with you?” I say to Josh.

“Yeah, she was. She just had to get something from your room. The box, I think,” he says and we set Brian down at our feet.

“Is he okay?” Red asks and toes his foot.

Alex does his famous eyes-the-size-of-dinner-plates thing at us.

“He’s fine. I just knocked him out,” I say.

Josh frowns at me.

“No, seriously! One punch. I’m as surprised as you are,” I say, suppressing a grin because WOEFULLY inappropriate.

Alex shakes his head, unconvinced, but I decide not to be insulted.

Alexa pitches up with the box.

“So nice of you to join us,” says Lynn and kisses her cheek.

“So happy to be here,” Alexa quips back and wrinkles her nose at Lynn. “Matilda, are we ready for this?”

“Yes. They’re here,” she says and turns to the playground. There, on almost every available surface, is a ghost. People from all eras throughout history all gathered together. Some of the ghosts I haven’t even seen before. Matilda clears her throat and addresses them. “Okay, listen up. You’ve all been stuck in this hotel for as long as you can remember. Let’s not drag this out. When Lynn says go, you go. Got it?”

There are general murmurs of agreement and then things get magical. Lynn says and incantation in Latin over the box, no bigger than an average jewelry box and with weird markings all over, and it opens. From inside comes a white light. Lynn beckons for Matilda and mutters something to her. Tilda has the first pair of ghosts show up. Lynn touches them both, says an incantation and waves her hand over the box. The ghosts disappear and the white light grows more intense for a second. This continues for ages until the only two ghosts left are Matilda and Alexa.

Lynn positions the twins on either side of the table, hands outstretched over a candle. She places her hands over both of theirs, speaks another incantation and then has them join hands. She finishes her spell – still grasping hands with them – kisses both on the forehead and then lets them go. Matilda vanishes and simultaneously a violet streak appears in Meredith’s hair exactly where her sister’s was.

“How do you feel?” Lynn asks her.

“I…Tilda’s still here. She’s with me. I’m great!” Red says, the biggest smile I have ever seen her give on her face.

Lynn smiles, too, touches her shoulder and moves back to the box. Before she gets there, however, Alexa walks over to her and takes her aside.

“What’s going on?” Alex whispers to me, appearing at my side.

“Um…” I start.

Alex raises his eyebrows at me and Josh also leans in to listen.

“Wow. This is hard,” I say.

“Just go for it,” is Josh’s advice.

I take a deep breath and let it spill out of me, “Alexa died. Brian killed her. She…she’s a ghost now. Like Matilda.”

“Oh, God…” Alex breathes. His eyes well up with tears.

We see Lynn breakdown, too. She buries her head in Alexa’s neck. For a long time, Lynn just stands there sobbing, her shoulders hitching, clinging onto her wife. I stand there and register the wetness on my own face. Josh has walked off aways and is crying, too. I look over at a confused Red and see Brendon hobbling towards her.

I’ve asked myself this question so many times, but it just seems forever relevant: what is the point of love if it always ends in pain? It starts off feeling like a tear in your heart, slowly leaking blood and draining you until you’re so delirious with happiness that you don’t even notice you’re dying. Then, eventually, life happens and you start to feel the pain little by little and all fresh pain hits you like a ton of bricks. You live for the happiness, though. The happiness keeps you going and you feel even happier when the other person carves you up, just to put you back together again. Sometimes it’s for the better. Sometimes not. You bear with it, though, because you want that happiness. One day, however, that happiness ends – whether it’s because of death or maybe the relationship just didn’t work out – and all you feel is the pain. It consumes you. You’re never, ever the same again.

What’s sadder than all of that, though, is a love that dies prematurely just because one party is stubborn and insistent on being unhappy.

_Jish?_

_Hey, Ty. You okay?_

_Not really. Just, I’m here for you, okay? Don’t forget about me. Even when I doubt you, I’m no good without you – to anybody._

_I know. I could never forget you, baby. This night is almost over. Tomorrow, the sun’ll rise and we’ll try again. Deal?_

_Deal._

We smile at each other across the space between us, but Josh’s warmth makes it seem like there’s no space between us at all.

The two women walk back to the box, hand in hand. Without a word to the rest of us, Lynn starts syphoning off all the dead spiritual energy in the hotel and surrounds. Brian lights up like a green traffic light. So do the hedge animals. Somewhere in the hotel, I know one of the rooms is lighting up in the same way.

When there’s nothing more to hide behind, Lynn and Alexa face each other.

“I love you,” Alexa says to her.

“I love you, too,” Lynn says, her voice remarkably steady. “Forever.”

“Forever.”

This time, Lynn’s spell is over far too quickly. Before disappearing into the box, Alexa and Lynn kiss one last time.

Then she’s gone.

Forever.

 

Walking into the department again feels so weird. Even if it is just to pack up. We all decided that it’s time to hang up our capes and leave saving the world to someone else. It just doesn’t feel right without Alexa.

Tyler’s been having nightmares every night since we got back. He won’t let me inside his head to help, but I know they’re about Alexa. He’s the only one to have seen her body, after all. He also eulogized her at her wake. It was absolutely beautiful. He wrote her song. Not even a sad song. A crazy, fun, upbeat, sweet song. It reminded us so much of Alexa that Lynn demanded he record it so that she could listen to it whenever she wanted. To him it was just ‘Song for Alexa’, but Lynn likes ‘Tear In My Heart’ a little better.

I decided to come pack up while Ty is at basketball practice. I’ll pack up his desk, too.

“Oh, hey.”

“Hey,” I say to Brian as he dumps his backpack on his desk.

“Mind if I join you?” he asks.

“Of course not.”

“You seen Lynn on campus at all?” he inquires, rummaging through his drawers.

“Not at all. I told myself I’ll come in tomorrow and pack up her And Al’s office.”

“Want some help?”

“That’d be great, yeah.”

He flashes me a smile and then continues his rummaging.

All my and Tyler’s things fit neatly into one plastic crate and Brian and Alex’s stuff require even less space than that, since they keep most of the tech in our trailer and that’s basically what they did.

We go pick up Ty together, having made plans to go out for pizza together for old time’s sake. As we enter the gym, though, we see Tyler shoving some guy in the chest. Hard.

“What the FUCK was that?” he demands of the guy.

“Joseph…” the coach tries, but Ty’s hearing none of it.

“WHAT the FUCK was THAT?” he yells, shoving the dude again.

“Ty, hey!” I say, set the crate down and jog up to him.

I try and put my hands on his shoulders, but pulls away from me.

“What cheap shit move was that? Are you a fucking asshole or are you just fucking stupid?” Tyler spits, having eyes only for this guy he’s digging into.

This guy looks utterly dumbfounded as to what he did, though.

“Tyler, maybe we should go home, huh? It’s been a tough couple of weeks and we all need to unwind. I’ll run you a nice bath–”

“FUCK YOUR BATH, Josh! This sonofabitch screwed me over and either he’s going to explain to me why, or I’m going to beat it out of him,” is Tyler’s response.

“What in the hell is going on?” Brian asks, having wandered over.

“This SOB…”

Brian backs away frantically. He almost trips over his own feet.

“Brian, you okay?” I ask, moving closer to him slowly.

“His face,” Brian says, eyes glued to Tyler.

I look between the two of them.

“What about it?” I ask.

At this point, the whole basketball team has gathered around for the show.

“Do you not see it? Oh, God…”

“See what, Brian? What is going on?” I ask, exasperatedly.

Brian’s response is to make the Catholic sign of the cross and mutter, “God, save us…”         

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go, peeps. Hope you loved it. Sorry for the feels. I had so many writing it, believe me. Until next time... Stay alive l-/


End file.
